Mage
by Cataclysmic
Summary: AU: no OoTP events will be included. The final battle has been fought and won, but what is there left for Harry, Dumbledores final gift to the child that was the son he never had. Alternate Universe, well sort of...
1. 1 The Golden Gate

OK This is the re-vamp of my story Mage, the first one in my opinion was rather vague with a plotline that tended to jump and chapters that ended abruptly.

This version will hopefully be more polished, have less plot holes and hopefully a better developed plot that you can understand more easily and not have things pop up from nowhere or pop up and never be developed. The original will be continued and this story will probably follow quite similar lines whilst changing and adding minor details. The original will remain up and be continued until such a time as it is finished or this version has caught up to it in which case it will be replaced.

I may not even post this version until I have revised the lot in which case I will just replace chapters or indeed the entire story.

Thankyou to everyone who has reviewed or will do so in the future and please if you do read this story and like it, or even if you don't review and let me know? I just ask that you refrain from outright insulting me because I am quite sensitive to such things and I'd rather not get depressed right now.

Enjoy the story.

Disclaimer: This disclaimer will serve the entire story and WILL NOT be posted with every chapter, I do not own Harry Potter, nor to I really wish to he and all other characters of the books belong to JK Rowling I make no profit or gains from the writing of this fan fiction, please don't sue me!

Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 1

The Golden Gate

Blood littered the ground surrounding the beaten soldier, beaten not by his enemy but his own memories, the memories of the things he had done, the things he had ordered, the things that had been necessary to ensure victory of the light or at the very least the not so dark, oh no the enemy was gone.  
  


  
For good this time, he was not coming back, not this time.

  
But it was not enough for this one soldier,  
  


  
Their leader

  
Their hero

  
He found it amusing after all this time they still considered him their saviour, even though he had not been seen in public for many years, come to think of it he had never really been seen in public, their sight unseen hero. 

It upset him more than anyone could possibly imagine the amount of young men and women, soldiers who came up and told him how they idolised him, how they had joined the fight to be like him, Harry Potter the Great General of the Dark Wars as the papers called him, what few and far between of them still existed. He was especially popular idol with the young recruits being young themselves, and the recruitment campaigns he endorsed only served to bring more and more far too young recruits up to the bat. He truly dreaded the occasional meeting with a mother or bitter sibling of those who joined to be just like him, against the wishes of their families, the families who in turn hated him for ripping a family member from them in many cases only to condemn them to die. In truth he had very little control over this, he was a war general, he had to make decisions for the good of the collective good not for the good of individuals nor for the good of himself. He knew there would be losses, everyone knew there would be losses yet no one thought it would be them, their family, their sibling, their mother, everything would be alright, they had Harry Potter.

God how he had wished to be one of the masses, one of the masses just out of his training, one of the people who could blindly follow him, Harry Potter, blind, blind to the consequences, blind to the plots, blind to the possibility of failure and yet seem so happy.

They weren't truly happy of course, but everything seemed that way to Harry the lost sheep mulling around waiting to be slaughtered, yet he would have rather have been one of the blind sheep than the one leading them to the slaughter.

His eyes glazed over the body of one of his troops, Amelia Bell, Katie's niece, only eleven years old, yet she could wield a wand so she had been here, they taught the children earlier now… 

It had been him the rules had been changed for, him and his friends, but the rules could not just be changed for so few they had to be changed for everyone, and favouritism could not be shown especially not now.

And so they had lowered the age, the age you could drink, the age you could vote, the age you could be independent from your parents, the age you could fight… All had been changed so that Harry and his friends could join the fight or at least that was what the public believed, the truth was much dirtier, something that none of them had been proud of at the time and something none of them had been proud of since but it had been necessary. And once it had been lowered it kept lowering.

His heart clenched at the thought of that decision, the decision that had rested on him a decision he had been forced to make with a cold heart.

They had given him the choice, sure he had been strong, he had made the choice but underneath until that moment, until he had taken up that path even after all the gruelling training, the near death experiences he had still been in some essence, a child.

But that night at that fateful meeting of the Order of the Phoenix Harry had stepped over the edge into an abyss which demanded he win at all costs, sometimes he wondered if he was any better than Voldemort sending those young troops, young children out to die, the shock troops, and they were all young, the expendable, the older the wiser were far to valuable to be lost in such a fashion. Tears fell down his cheeks, how could he be so cold?

He was forced to maintain a cold outlook; even though he was dieing inside, he felt every one of those deaths weighing on his head everyday, knowing that tomorrow it would only get worse when he sent even more out to die. 

He was like a dead shell now that it was all over, his purpose here was finished and he honestly wondered how many would miss him, he wouldn't.

People had joined to be just him, like his image more like, an image he would do anything to get rid of, an image that had cost him the family he could have had, friends he would have laid down his life for if they hadn't done it first...The image created by himself and the others to inspire the people, to encourage them to lie down their lives for them, for the cause, how very Medieval dictator like of them, how Voldemort like them, he thought, to treat the people they were trying to protect with such disrespect, however there were several differences between him and the Dark Lord one of those was that he did not enjoy having to project an image, especially one that would and had cost so many young people like himself to meet an untimely demise. Yet they were not like himself, those he sent out to die they were ignorant children who wanted an end to the suffering and a slice of the glory, they were not incredibly skilled and groomed into the job for years before the war, they were ignorant scared children, something he had never truly been.  
  


  
It was over, finally over and all he could do was sit trying to even his breathing on a battlefield littered with those who had given their lives in hopes of attaining something better something worth living for, they had achieved their goals but they would never get to experience that which they had fought so hard for.

  
Tears ran silently down his face, none that had entered the battle with him, his group had survived, the elite of their forces, what had been left of them, lay scattered around one broken soldier.

  
He remembered a time, a time not so long ago when he had been young and innocent.

  
OK maybe not as innocent as the average Joe but comparatively innocent, his fifth year, the start of his 'enlightenment' as he bitterly referred to it. He did not blame anyone for his early 'awakening' he and he alone had made the choice and although his life had been hard from that point on, he did not regret it, not that choice although he regretted many others.  
  


  
Albus had called him into his office as soon as he arrived, and offered him a choice, THE choice.

  
The choice was a simple one, continue on as a normal student and likely be dead before the end of the year

  
OR

  
Enter a specialised training course designed specifically to make the perfect wizard or perish in the process.

  
The latter offered him the 'heightened' possibility of surviving. it also provided Albus with the best weapon possible in the upcoming war, but neither knew that at the time, Albus didn't really think he would do as well as he did in the program he expected him to survive, hoped he would survive. Albus cared, not just about Harry the ultimate weapon.

  
He wasn't really the ultimate weapon, but that was what the people had ended up dubbing him. Recruiters had encouraged it as it helped recruitment numbers, helped bring in more lambs for the slaughter more ignorant children.

He was just another pawn in the game of life, he did not think of himself as Dumbledore's pawn, as many had referred to him believing themselves Better than the great Harry Potter, and that was simply because he knew better, he knew Albus was as much of a pawn in this game as he was, he did not want to lead, he did not want to be the shining symbol of hope that everyone perceived him as, but he was and that was that, no one could change that. Voldemort was the opposing Queen, could move with barely any restraints, and they were just pawns, pawns of the cause, protectors of the light. It was really irrational of them to think that pawns could defeat a Queen, yet that had been what he had done, what he had to do to end all this, he had travelled to the other side of the board and made himself a Queen as well, an equal.

He wondered why fate had seen fit to put him though such a cruel game, maybe he had done something really horrible in a past life or something, not that he believed in past lives, he didn't know what he believed in that was just it, it was all over now but who was he? His past had never allowed him to discover this and it troubled him, what did he have left to believe in, sure light always conquered Dark but what happened after? He somehow doubted that Histories Heroes had seen fit to publish a 'What to do when it's all over' self help book.

  
When he made his decision, the decision of a fifteen year old kid a decision that would put him in the front lines of the upcoming war, the room, no the castle developed a menacing feeling to it he had never felt before, but he knew it had been there underneath the surface, he had just chosen to ignore it before now.  
  


He was now intimately familiar with that feeling, it was the feeling that something was coming something horrible, something no sane person could possibly like, sure he like Hermione had never truly ever believed in Divination, save his visions from Voldemort which could never truly be seen as Divination more like a side effect of being hit with the Killing Curse, but the feeling, it was real even Hermione after having felt, after becoming aware of it was convinced it was a sign of things to come, it was like a sixth sense of danger on the horizon you just did not know when and where or perhaps if they weren't so aware of exactly what the danger was of what, just a warning, a warning that there was danger coming. The feeling had never failed them either once they were aware of it.

  
It had been the turning point, the point he had ceased being innocent little Harry who would never even seriously consider the Unforgivables for any other use then against Voldemort or maybe Wormtail. It had been the turning point and now it was all over he wished he could go back and change his decision, where he could just enjoy the company of his friends, laugh and just do things without worrying about the consequences of his actions.  
  


  
He couldn't of course, he wished he could but the fact remained.  
  


  
His choice was for the greater good.

  
Any other choice would have resulted in total devastation, destruction, chaos, death...

  
Sure there was death here now, Good God there was a lot of death but had he made the other choice things would have swung a lot worse than the death of a mere ten thousand men.

  
God he had turned into a cold hearted bastard, he thought bitterly. TEN THOUSAND MEN had died and he thought it was MERE.  
  


  
It was though and though he didn't want to admit it, it was a small price to pay. They had lost more and gained less...A battle of attrition that they had won, had they truly won when they had lost so much?  
  


  
The final battle, it was finally over...

  
But what was there left for him to do...

  
He knew he could never be normal again, that innocent little kid, laugh over something so trivial as Canary Creams...  
  


  
He had just lost too much...

  
He remembered Albus's death, Albus his guiding light, his fellow pawn...

  
Just what had he meant back then...?  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The battle raged around them, friend and foe falling to the ground from the lethal combination of curses, hexes, spells, swords, sabres, guns anything and everything that could cause damage, the damage and the skill, how you incapacitated the enemy, that was what dictated this battle, dictated who lived and who died.

  
Harry knew the dangers, he thrived on the dangers.

Another Black Hawk Helicopter raged overhead, blasting away pockets of Death Eaters foolish enough to cluster together, mowing them down with its guns…  
  


  
That didn't mean he liked this, the situation any more than the next person, no it just meant he coped well with the current one, he was at home on the battlefield, it looked and felt like he was born to do this...  
  


  
He knew he could die, every person led into battle knows the odds are they won't live to see the other side of the battle but Harry moved with such ease through the battle scenes that many believed him invincible. 

Just as he had believed or disillusioned himself into believing that Albus was invincible...  
  


  
But no there he was right in front of him bloody, and well dying. He couldn't, no he wouldn't die tears streamed down the sixteen and a half year olds face as he watched his fading mentor...

  
The battle raged around them, yet nothing touched them.

A golden barrier having formed around the two figures dissipating and maiming anything coming into contact with it, good and bad...ally or enemy  
  


  
Harry sat watching his last father figure fade out of his life...Sirius, Remus, Arthur, Moody, all dead, hell even Snape was missing, not that he really considered him a father figure…  
  


  
But his long time mentor was not finished with his last strength he watched his favourite student crying silently over him already feeling the effects of his death, Harry would be the end of this war, he was sure of it, it was his destiny had been since birth to rid the world of Voldemort, but what was left for him once he was gone, not a lot he still had Hermione but whether she would still be there when the final battle was fought was doubtful at best, when all was said and done Harry would be alone emotionally, mentally and physically, and he knew, knew from the late night confessions Harry had shared with him over the last year and a half, that being alone was the one thing Harry feared above all else...the one thing that could ultimately destroy him

  
His physical strength was ebbing yes, but his magical energy was still going strong, he knew he would die, knew at the outbreak of this war he would not live to see the dawn on the other side but with his last magical strength he fought to give Harry one last gift, so he wouldn't be alone and maybe even have a chance to be happy again at the end of all this. He worked the spell pouring not only power but his heart and soul into the spell so Harry might have a chance, a second chance. He loved Harry like the son he had never had and the sacrifice of a few more minutes of life was more than worth it to him, for the chance for Harry to be Happy.  
  


  
The spell completed, he worked the last of his strength into giving him one last message, the message that would seal Harry's fate...  
  


  
"When it is all over Harry go through the gold..." and with that his final message was all but lost his last words left unfinished Albus Dumbledore great figure of history, father figure of Harry Potter, brilliant mind and lover of socks left his body and left the world a cold and empty place...

Death Eaters paid heavily for his loss.  
  


  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  


Had it been anyone but Albus Harry would have disregarded those final words for the nonsense ramblings of a dying man, but it wasn't anyone else, it was Albus, and Albus rarely did anything without a purpose, he did not count the mans dying words as one of those occasions, the way those deep sparkling blue eyes had held him roared at him the importance, yet he had never finished, never finished whatever important life shattering message he wished to leave him with.

  
It was all over wasn't it, what did he mean the gold… his heart clenched as he thought of Albus, just one more face that no longer existed save for memory, no not just one more face, one more of the important ones, the one connected to him, the real him...

  
He stood and surveyed the battlefield medi-witches as they worked feverishly over patients in the distance, patients that would likely die anyway or checking for pulses on those who were not moving all was cast in a red and gold glow as the sun set on the dry desert that was shrouded in another form of red and I guess you could call it gold, red cracked earth, blood and gaping yellow cliffs  
  


  
Gryffindor colours.

  
Was everting he thought now so twisted that he could even compare bloodied wastelands to his old school colours?

  
The sun set and a portal opened.

Not just any portal a golden portal.

  
Twenty metres in front of him lay the answer to Albus' dying riddle.  
  


  
Did he really want to know what lay beyond?

  
Did he even really care?

He knew what he had to do, there was nothing here left for him, nothing left to do, he had fulfilled his purpose, sure there would be people he would miss, the one person who had kept him really living, but he no longer felt alive here, like a part of himself had died with Voldemort, like he had outlived his usefulness, he knew he was going to take the chance…

  
Harry threw all doubts as to the safety of the portal out the window, he trusted Albus and if he wanted him to go through the portal he would... after all what did he really have left to lose?

  
With these final thoughts Harry took one last look at the darkening death scene and exited through the portal not really caring where it took him, not really caring about what he left behind so long as he did not have to look back, so long as it was a long way from here.

  
With a final shine of sparkling brilliance General Harry James Potter War Mage extraordinaire disappeared, never to be seen again... 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Minister of Magic James Potter looked up from his tea sighing at the over excited young messenger that had just stormed into his office. He really needed to have a chat to his secretary about who was let into his office, sure most of the time he was bored when he wasn't doing something, but overexcitable desk clerks was not a something he would have chose to relieve his boredom.  
  


  
Putting down his cup he patiently waited for the clerk to catch his breath, he wasn't especially interested after all he'd had thousands of desk clerks come running into his office in manners oh-so-similar over the last few years and it was no where near as often that they had ever had anything important, let alone interesting to say.

  
Don't get it wrong Minister Potter enjoyed his job, well as much as Minister Potter could really enjoy anything anymore, he just did not like the slightly more boring aspects that came with every measly desk clerk paper pushing moron thinking their work is THE most important thing to happen in a century possibly the millennia and they simply MUST bring it to the attention of the Minister. It didn't help matters at all when the stupid secretary just LET them in either, oh no.

  
The Paper Pushing Desk Clerk who had just informed him his name is Mr Gibblescribble, not that he really cared, had a horrible droning quality to his voice that oddly resembled Professor Binns his old History of Magic teacher and he instantly felt himself nodding off from years of practice. James shook his head and desperately fought to keep his concentration in the odd event that he actually did have something of importance to say.  
  


  
It just so happened that Mr Gibblescribble DID have something interesting to say, but it irked James to no end that he did not have details.  
  


  
Professor Dumbledore wanted to see him...

  
Immediately...

  
It had to be the strangest thing that had happened at work in years, it was no secret that the Minister abhorred Albus Dumbledore, hated him with a passion, something the Headmaster was intimately aware of.

It had to be the strangest, weirdest and probably stupidest thing Albus Dumbledore had done in years, for him to contact James Potter, Minister of Magic requesting to see him immediately was incredibly dangerous, for Albus Dumbledore to send in a request for increased school funding was dangerous, either Albus Dumbledore had something incredibly important on his hands or he had finally developed a death wish, that or he was ready to relinquish his position of Headmaster, whatever the case James wanted to know, needed to know what was so important that Dumbledore would risk contacting him, requesting his presence of all things.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Lily came out of the doctors with a delighted expression on her face...  
  


  
It had finally happened after all these years, after all these years of trying it was finally happening, she was so happy she could simply whip out her wand and place cheering charms on everyone within a ten block radius just so they to could feel a fraction of the happiness coursing through her veins.

  
An owl fluttered down and rested on her shoulder, luckily she had yet to re- enter the muggle inhabited area outside of ST Mungos, that would have attracted a few stares, though she doubted that everyone was as conscious of what they did in front of muggles as she was, she was muggle-born after all and unlike so many pure-blooded wizards she knew what muggle expectations were like, and letter carrying birds were not everyday items in a muggles life.  
  


  
Lily quickly untied the letter from the owls leg and sat down on a conveniently close bench, most probably used by recovering patients of the world famous wizarding hospital..  
  


  
The letter was from Professor Dumbledore, the esteemed Headmaster of Hogwarts, asking her Lily Marie Potter to please come immediately to Hogwarts as there was an urgent matter that required her attention...This slightly diminished her happy mood, Lily Potter did not want to be contacted by Albus Dumbledore, under any circumstances, he had robbed her of her first son, but…  
  


  
AN URGENT MATTER!

Lily could not for the life of her think of an urgent matter that would require her attention, much less an urgent matter that required _her _Lily Potter to be needed anywhere near the presence of one Albus Dumbledore.

Lily had long since cut herself off from the school and kept as far away from the _esteemed_ Headmaster as possible. As far as she could tell there had not been any reason to change that relationship, sure he had tried several times to convince Lily and James to forgive him, to talk to him again, as far as she was concerned that was never going to happen, she may find it in her heart to forgive the Headmaster, in the extremely distant future, and even then only for the sake of her child, but she doubted she would ever be able to be comfortable, God she didn't think she would be able to be in his presence without flying into an inevitable fit of rage. Harry's death was just too painful, and probably always would be.

But was he really at fault, she desperately wanted to blame someone for her loss did it really matter who, Albus Dumbledore, was it really his fault or just her anger lashing out at the first person she could think of to blame, urgently, the letter had said but here she remained, before she went to face him, if she even gathered up enough courage to face him she needed to know how she really felt, not the bottled up hatred that had fed off itself for years, she needed to know what she would do when she got there.

In fact Lily was having a rare moment of clarity; she could see just how stupid she had really been. For years she had been blaming Dumbledore for her son's death, for years she had been blaming him for something that was not his fault. Yes it had been Dumbledore who had suggested the Fidelis Charm, but he had explained the risks, he had offered to be their secret keeper and they had refused, stupidly refused thinking they knew better, thinking they could trust their friends better than they could trust Dumbledore, what the hell had they been thinking! Dumbledore had not chosen their secret keeper, they had.

Yes he had failed to root out the traitor before it was too late but the man was not omniscient. Hell even when she had spread her opinion of him _not_ being omniscient she still expected it of him. Totally irrational, and it had taken eighteen years for her to realize just how irrational she had been behaving. How stupid she had been.

Yet even as she realized the mistake she had made, the subsequent mistakes following the original ones, grief mingled in with years of certain opinions and behaviour towards the Headmaster kept creeping in. It would not be easy, forgiving him for her mistake, forgiving herself for her mistake, working through the years of hatred which had fed off her hate and self loathing, but she was damn well going to try, this had gone on long enough, and if she was going to drag herself through this she would damn well drag James with her.

This was the time for new beginnings, to right the wrongs she had done, to make sure old grudges would not get in the way of her newfound happiness, she would not have her child growing up in the hate infested environment she had been living in for the last eighteen years, she would put her feelings aside and do what was best for her child, and it was better for her child that all this was resolved before he or she was even born.

Lily smiled at her resolution.

Standing up and placing her hand lovingly on her stomach where she could practically feel her baby's life force below her fingers she turned back towards St. Mungo's and towards the nearest fireplace.

Resolved. 

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

(a little earlier)  
  


Harry immediately regretted going through that portal, not only had his horrid Slytherin side decided to make an appearance, chiding him for trusting _anyone_, especially when that person was Albus, a person who was without a doubt missing a little something in his head, but also for walking into an unknown substance, going to who knows where!

To add insult to injury that thing was positively sickening, worse than a muggle roller coaster whose designer had definitely been _on something at the time of it's creation. He felt like he was being ripped apart, put back together, turned inside out and given as a gift to the most sadistic torturer in existence. It was not to say the least the most pleasant sensation._

Finally it seemed to be stopping, Harry could not have felt more relieved in his life, the hell with his reputation he had started screaming a long time ago, he was not even sure when he had started, not that it really mattered, it felt like he had been here forever and yet it felt like he had only been here a second. One thing he knew though was that it no longer hurt enough to be screaming, so he stopped.

Despite the previous sensations of torture and being torn inside out he felt remarkable good, not the best he had been in his life but about the same as he had felt upon entering the portal. He knew it was coming to an end, he was nearly there, wherever there was, not too far in the distance he could see a golden portal, not unlike the one he had entered to get here, though this one was different, this one he could see through, he could see what he thought was a fuzzy outline of a classroom, he kept walking closer, the closer he got the wider the portal got, now only gold on the fringes with a shimmering silver mirror like surface, still not clear enough to tell that the room on the other side was anything but a classroom. Tentatively he poked a finger at it, he immediately regretted it, cursing his curiosity, he really should know better by know, shiny surfaces, they always got him in the end.

He immediately found himself pitched forward, rather like being pitched forward into a pensieve with several differences. One, it actually hurt when he hit the ground, a lot. Two he knew it wasn't a pensieve and although the sensation was similar it was also distinctly different, more like being forcibly inserted into the memory then just viewing it. The Third difference was that there were people here, people who could actually see him.

Harry, thought he was long past the gaping stage, his training and years of being at the top of a wartime hierarchy had given him a quiet sort of dignity, a reputation to keep up and a constant conscious sense of what he was doing, at the minute however his body and mind seemed to be working in rewind. He was gaping, him, Harry Potter a War General, gaping. It was a little vain he knew to think of himself in this fashion but he was shocked, and with all he had seen in his all to short life he had seriously doubted he would have ever have been shocked again in his life. 

Here he was in the classroom, the classroom he had seen on the other side of the portal, this classroom however was hauntingly familiar, this classroom had one belonged to his former Head of House Minerva McGonagall. Minerva had been an invaluable source of inspiration for Harry, when the war began she was not one of the sheep, older than the average recruit though she was she would not stand back in the shadows, member of the Order of Phoenix Council she had shown she was more than just a simple school teacher she'd jump in and help anywhere that needed helping, research, planning, battle she would do it all…

So caught up in his memories of his, well it was hard to explain what Minerva was to him, everyone was a lot closer to each other when united in war, so caught up was he that he did not notice the class in the classroom, or indeed the teacher.

Minerva was extremely curious as to why this stranger had seen fit to drop into_ her_ classroom,_ her_ beautifully clean ordered classroom with her distracting her well behaved studious students. Ok so the majority of them weren't studious, but they were working quietly and getting their work done, something that in this school was very rare.

OK so she was not only curious she was a little annoyed, more than a little annoyed. However being the well prepared teacher that she was, she kept her head. And right at this minute that head, instincts, whatever, were telling her that this person whoever he was, was a possible danger to her students.

Motioning to her students to move behind her, move towards the door she began to approach the stranger.

Unfortunately the students either did not sense the danger or did not take it seriously enough, these were Gryffindor's after all, it was that or the large amount of students in the class, so many students in fact that all the classrooms had to modified to fit them, they being all the children that had been born after Voldemort's reign, an abnormally large amount.   
  


The unfortunate thing about this was that the amount of noise it created when a class of over thirty students moved from one end of the classroom to another.

This noise in fact caused the stranger to look up and jump to his feet from where he had been slouching on the floor.

Battle Robes were the first thing she noticed, not many people remembered what they looked like they were so rare, yet this stranger wore them, her estimation of the threat this person posed had just jumped exponentially. She herself owned a set of Battle Robes thankfully set aside in her closet hopefully for eternity. She remembered the terrible things she had been forced to do while wearing those robes, and she sincerely hoped that no one, ever, would have to suffer through that again, but even she realized that was wishful thinking. One wizard rose to power and after he fell another would rise after him and if they were extremely unlucky more than one would rise at the same time.

Battle Robes were just that, robes worn in battle, specially modified to conceal weapons and allow for easy movement, magically enforced to deflect minor spells, these robes were not worn by the novice, they were worn by the best, the best of the best.

The young man, so young, made his way to his feet in a few quick fluid motions, pulling himself together as he had been taught, standing tall proud and intimidating in his blood-soaked battle robes scanning the room in a manner that reminded her sharply of Alastor Moody.

What really worried her was the blood, the blood that covered, soaked his robes was not his own.

This man scared her, she sincerely hoped that this mans intentions were good (fat chance) and that he did not mean to hurt the students, because if she was forced into a duel with this man she sincerely doubted she could win.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
(Minutes Earlier)  
  


Minerva looked up serenely from her desk, it was not often you had a class working this well in the afternoon, one of the reasons Timetables alternated morning and afternoon classes was that it had been proven that students concentrated better in the morning then in the afternoon.

It annoyed her immensely that she had more afternoon classes than morning with the Seventh Year Gryffindor's, concentration after all was an important part of Transfiguration.

Looking back down at the third year Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw essays she placed a C in red ink on the top of the paper, it really wasn't fair, comparing Hufflepuff work with Ravenclaw, the Ravenclaw would always be more detailed.

She was quite surprised when the comfortable working atmosphere in the classroom deteriorated, chatter had erupted, she looked up mustering an annoyed look, she had just been getting ahead in her marking, she had seriously had not expected to get much done in the way of marking this afternoon, but now that she had started she was determined to get it finished, it was their own fault they had been so quiet, they were now expected to stay that way.

However when she looked up she was not met with the guilty eyes of some wanna-be prankster, or the slightly nervous faces of a pair of giggling gossipers, she was instead met with the uneasy muttering of a confused class. A confused class who where all looking to the back of the room, instead of to their work like they were supposed to be. Curious despite herself Minerva made her way to the rear of the room.

She had of course heard of strange magical phenomena occurring before, it generally occurred in areas of high magical origin, she supposed of course that Hogwarts was one of those places, however she had never considered actually seeing it. Magical Phenomena tended to be shy, occurring in out of the way places, not in the middle of a classroom full of students. 

She watched fascinated as a golden circle appeared and seemed to solidify turning to silver in the centre surrounded by a golden rim. The silver swirled and suddenly _something_ was thrown out. It didn't take her long to identify that something as a man.

She watched uneasy as with glazed eyes he raked over the classroom…

Albus Dumbledore was currently occupying his office, really where else would the Headmaster of the most prestigious school for Witchcraft and Wizardry be found? Well there was the odd attraction to a muggle mini golf course or a trip down to Crazy Maisies Robes for the Seriously Weird but right at this moment Albus Dumbledore could be found in his office.

It was previously mentioned that Hogwarts was the most prestigious school for Witchcraft and Wizardry, correct? Yes well it just so happened that this particular school had a particular reason for being so prestigious, well that is a story for another time.

Right at this moment Albus was in his office, exactly where you would expect to find him when you have a problem, exactly where you would find him if you ever went looking for him, and exactly where he was not when it was not absolutely necessary. 

The reason for Albus being in his office was one little teaching position, the most talked about position in Hogwarts History and a position most notorious to fill. That position was, is and will be the Defence Against the Dark Arts post.

Harder then ever before was it to fill, as the most prestigious school people should be jumping for the chance to teach there right? Wrong. Long before the owls even reached them educators were running for cover and barricading themselves in, the reputation was just that bad.

In front of him had his latest correspondence, a letter from his great niece Mavis twice removed, a letter from his brother Aberforth cursing his existence, you know the usual stuff but sitting on the top of the pile as yet untouched sat a letter from the Ministry.

Reluctantly he picked up the letter, letters from the Ministry these days just weren't what they used to be, that could be a side effect of having the Minister hating your guts, but really Albus didn't want to know, he had given up on the good faith of the Ministry a long time ago. He opened the letter.

Albus Dumbledore forlornly surveyed the parchment just sent to him by the Ministry of Magic, this parchment unlike those usually sent by the Ministry of Magic was unusually short, for this was not some longwinded obscure Ministry document filled to the brim with Ministry jargon that one could never truly understand, no this was a list, a list of prospective teachers to fill the Defence Against the Dark Arts post.

For once in his life Albus Dumbledore was at a loss, he simply could not find a replacement for his previous Defence teacher Sirius Black, granted Black was not the best of teachers, in fact he was more an anti-Professor, more of a student than a teacher but any teacher was better than no teacher at all, Sirius had left at the end of last year, after the continued tensions between himself and the Minster of Magic also known as his best friend James Potter reached unprecedented levels. Of course that was not the reason Sirius had given in his resignation but that was really to be expected, after all why would Sirius tell the truth when he could lie? But that wasn't it either, Sirius though bitter had never really blamed Albus the way that his best friends had, and had probably done it to save Albus the pain. Not that it worked. It was a well known fact that James Potter loathed Albus Dumbledore with a passion, and although Albus could not do a thing about it blamed him for his sons death. James Potter hated Albus Dumbledore with a passion and if he could he would have had him relinquish his post as Headmaster a long time ago.

However apart from the usual depressing stiff formality of Ministry letters these days it also contained rather depressing contents. 

The list was short, so short in fact he was surprised they even bothered to send the thing.

Apart from the quantity of the people on the list however there was also a shortage of quality, not to mention availability. Every single one of these people he had already contacted, every single one had one or several excuses why not to.

Gilderoy Lockhart - blundering idiot who steals the credit for other peoples work; currently doing a photo shoot in Barbados and quote "would never work in such an unattractive castle ever again unless his publicist could have a suite fit for a Lord, he a suite fit for a King and his photographer allowed free reign of the castle..."  
  


  
He was totally unsuitable and also unavailable...  
  


  
Remus Lupin was working for the ministry and was happy with his current position as a werewolf liaison officer. Remus also had a young daughter, something difficult if not impossible to work around, in this school at least.  
  


  
Hetty Hornsworth has a grudge against Minerva so bad that when Minerva failed her in the third year she had sent letters for weeks baring all manners of horrible curses, hexes and generally anything that would do damage. Not that she admitted it of course. There was also the fact that the position favoured Gyrffindors for some reason or another, they seemed to last longer. The position was definitely not for a Slytherin. Thus Hetty too was out of the picture, if indeed she had ever been in the picture in the first place.

  
Sirius Black the former DADA Professor quit at the end of last year to take up an Auror post in some tropical paradise and was supremely enjoying himself, thankyou very much, Albus had of course rolled his eyes at this response, typical Sirius as he knew for a fact that his wife Melody Black was pregnant and was making him stay at home, very short leash she had on him Melody Black, there was also the little detail of trying to stay in James good books. 

  
And so ended the extremely short list of DADA Professors the ministry had sent over.

  
Whatever was he going to do?

  
  


  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  


Harry was in shock, but he would not let it show, he must not show emotion, emotion could be read and used against you still…whatever Harry had been expecting when he had taken the plunge into the portal, it was Minerva McGonagall's Transfiguration Classroom, not the Transfiguration classroom, not with people in it, certainly not with this amount of people in it and most importantly not with Minerva McGonagall in it.

OK all things considered he thought he was taking this quite well, quite well indeed.

To some people it may have crossed their minds that when jumping through an unknown magical manifestation otherwise known as the portal, you just might end up somewhere unexpected, hell you may even end up dead, hence in a room full of dead people. Harry however was not one of them, and although given time he may have considered the easy way out, it would have only been a momentary lack of judgement, Harry despite his recent antics on the battlefield, and his increasingly morbid thoughts Harry did not yet want to die. Key word being yet.

One thing Harry was sure of from all his time with Dumbledore was that he wanted Harry to LIVE like he had to be able to enjoy life, so therefore it had not entered his mind upon entering the portal that he might not be alive when he reached the other side. Hence shock since it seemed that was exactly what had seemed to happen.

Dumbledore had often asked him what he would do after the war, had encouraged him to keep up his hopes for a normal life, well as normal as it could ever be for him, Albus had been one of the few remanets of his former life that gave him hope to start a new one, after the curtains fell and Voldemort was defeated if he ever was, but Albus's instructions had been clear, to go through the golden something or other, he had never really finished but the natural assumption was that what ever Albus had wanted to say, it had to do with the portal after all how often did a golden portal pop up out of nowhere after you had just killed one of the most evil beings ever to have existed? he had certainly not expected to meet dead people on the other side of said portal.

Yet as confused as he was, he knew. Not everything is as it seems.

Unbidden his hands made their ways to rest on the hilts of his daggers.

He had found that daggers were a most efficient means of defence, in a close range situation, that is…

It had been necessary during the war to come up with attack methods other than magic, especially when the muggles became involved, sometimes muggle methods could be just as effective as magic, if not more so, magic was just so unpredictable when used in battle.

He subtly moved himself into a defensive stance; he would not attack unless provoked.

He was confused, that much he could admit to himself. _Things may not be as they seem._

Minerva she had moved the students behind her, towards the door.

Harry nearly laughed despite himself; Minerva looked so _scared never before in all his life had he seen Minerva so openly well _scared.__

It amused him to no end that he was the one that had finally terrified McGonagall, McGonagall who had faced her death without a pinch of fear and here she was scared of him.

It would of course amuse him a great deal greater if he could figure out what the bloody hell was going on!

A quailing Minerva what was the world coming to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
Hermione looked up from the tactical maps of the monitoring station; the station had been a joint effort, with Ron. He had always been so much better at operating it than she was but since his death she had been forced to give up her place on the field. It wasn't a reflection on her skill or anything it was just that she was the only one trusted enough, trusted and skilled enough to have access to such a complex and important tool. She supposed that given time they could have found and trained someone else to operate the device but that was one of the many things they did not have. Time. And so here she was the only person left on their side, apart from Harry. Who knew how to operate the damn thing. It was not really a good thing that only two people knew how to truly operate this, the most important tool they had for this type of warfare.

The battle was over, the enemy was decimated, and Harry was missing.  
Hermione looked once again at the tactical map, which showed the positions of the field witches and wizards willing Harry to reappear, already she had had several reports stating that Harry had disappeared through a great golden light thing, the same time he had disappeared from the map.

'It hasn't been long' she thought, 'there's still a chance he'll be alright' the battle had finished quite some time ago and many had already left to begin the celebrations, but Hermione had remained watching Harry on the other hand had remained watching Harry.

Unfortunately Harry had chosen to disappear after the remaining soldiers had left to celebrate and what little were left were all out looking for him. Hermione really hoped this was an unusual circumstance that the reason Harry had left the map was because he apparated or something, not the reason thousands of other had disappeared that day.

She couldn't stand to be the only one left.

Minutes passed and Hermione's eyes never strayed from the magical map in front of her, hands clenching and unclenching hoping against hope this was not real.

Harry couldn't die.

Tears streamed down her face.

Suddenly a great golden portal opened right in front of her, she could no longer see the map, but surprisingly she COULD see through the portal, and she COULD see Harry on the other side of the portal.

Not hesitating a second, not even wondering where this mysterious phenomena had come from Hermione Granger, Tactical Commands disappeared without a trace, leaving many to wonder whether the two had left after the battle together, to start a new life.

They would never realize just how right they were.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Minerva relaxed slightly when she noticed her assailant, possible assailant she amended, moved into a defensive stance rather than an aggressive one. It was also a positive sign that his wand was not within sight, that of course was no guarantee that this man was an immediate danger.

Mind somewhat at ease, but still alert to the possible dangers she decided it was time for one of them to make a move; the students were getting restless and might do something dangerous if this was not resolved soon.

Minerva had met her fair share of dangerous people in her lifetime, fighting actively against both Voldemort and Grindelwald, she was no stranger to danger yet never before in her life had she met someone who exuded such a strong sense of power, in both magical and looks departments. This was the most dangerous person she had ever met, she could tell from his stance, the way he stood, the robes, the palpable amount of magic he was giving off. Finally she lifted her eyes to his face, and was startled by what she saw there.

Amusement.

That was either very very good or very very bad.

The very very good option stated that she had only seen that sort of twinkle in one other very powerful wizard, Albus Dumbledore.

The very very bad stated that that look of amusement means that he doesn't see you as a threat and will begin the killing and torturing whenever he damn well pleased and there was nothing she could do about it.

Needless to say she was hoping for the very very good option. However Minerva had never been one for believing the best in situations, she had always prepared for the worst.

Gathering her courage she opened her mouth willing the words to come out, and that voice had better be steady too, no way was she going to go down quivering like a duck. She was a McGonagall after all, and a Gryffindor, she had her pride.

However, though she was a McGonagall and a Gryffindor she was not stupid enough to be rude to this man, nah uh no one could ever accuse Minerva of being stupid, it just was not done.

So it was with the utmost politeness that she phrased her question.

"Who are you and wha…?"

She trailed off as she noticed get another glowing glimmer of gold behind the man…

Harry almost immediately noticed Minerva's shift in focus and he could see a reflection of the gold in her eyes, he knew this was not a desperate attempt at diversion.

Wasting not a second more Harry spun around on his heels, daggers materializing from within his robes where he had be fondling them only seconds before and shifted into attack mode.

Someone may have followed him, and there was no telling who, he had no clue how long the portal might have stayed open after he had gone through.

The daggers were his almost instantaneously in his hands. Daggers, best to use in close combat when unsure of your opponents potential. Ideally he would have liked to use his wand, less blood; it was neat and tidy and usually got the job done. However usually was the key word, many new and better shielding spells had been developed over the war and wands though useful were not everything. Daggers, Swords, Guns and other muggle weaponry were extremely useful, no matter how strong the shield it would not keep muggle weaponry out. They had tried of course, to build shields that would keep muggle weaponry out, it simply had never worked.

The reason Harry knew very well wasn't in the shield but in the weaponry, he had worked for a time as a primary researcher on the subject, not to mention working as a tester to see if it would work or not. The problem lay in the weaponry; attempts to shield yourself with magic against muggle weapons would not work for the simple reason that the weapons did not hold enough magic.

Magical shields could only work against magic, it had taken several months for the researchers after he had pointed out this fact to figure out the amount of magic a blade, gun or bullet could hold and still penetrate shields.

The amount of magic able to be used on weapons was extremely small, a sharpening charm, a strengthening charm and a cleaning charm, each only used in the smallest amounts possible, usually cast by young inexperienced novices.

It was only a small difference but it was a difference, and they had held the knowledge of knowing what the exact threshold was for over a year before the enemy had figured it out.

The portal was growing, he was growing nervous with every second that passed staying poised ready to attack anything that moved, he may have been focused on the portal at the moment but he had certainly not forgotten about the desperate teacher behind him, he had cast the strongest wandless shield he knew how as well as a proximity ward so if she shot a spell off at him while his back was turned he would not, hopefully be injured.

The portal grew to a rather large size, higher then he was tall and wide enough to cover half the back of the classroom. Rather suddenly it solidified. He shifted uneasily on his feet as he watched the portal turn shiny and silver save for the very edges which still pulsed with gold.

Harry shifted his entire attention to the portal, he knew it was dangerous to do so but what was coming out of the portal was an unknown and there were children in this room, he didn't think that Minerva would kill him, stun him for questioning maybe but although slightly dangerous what was coming out of the portal was _unknown._

The silver rippled, and Harry's already tense muscles forced themselves to loosen.

He was as prepared as he was going to get. If whoever was coming through now was hostile he knew one thing. He would not be the one to lose. He would not lose. Not now.

The silver substance seemed to retract before spitting out a small feminine figure.

He remained in his stance as she, unlike him managed to land with a little more grace, not much just a little.

It was with relief he recognised her, Hermione. His lips quirked, his stance relaxed slightly, he knew he shouldn't relax yet but he couldn't help it, it was Hermione. Nevertheless he asked the question.

"Password." Was the first thing he said upon seeing who it was, keeping his voice level. It was a necessary precaution amongst the higher command on the Light Side. A necessary precaution, each of them had their own code phases changed daily and only known among each other. Seals used on Orders were blood, voice and password activated so as to protect the higher levels of command from Polyjuice Potion and similar appearance changes.

Hermione smiled wryly and calmly stated her password, "Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't." Harry sighed, it was correct and he relaxed his posture slightly, still wary of McGonagall.

"Password Harry." She said, he wasn't in the slightest bit offended it was common practice she had to check, it was well known by the enemy that they had a password system even if they could not break into it.

**"**Coincidence is just a euphemism for conspiracy.**" He replied fluidly, and smiled the passwords they often used quotes or fragments of song for their passwords, particularly muggle songs. Voldemort was less likely to pick up on them and they were a bit of fun to take your mind off things, of how bad things were. There were also many advantages to passwords made up of song typical voice changing potions and charms used in conjunction with polyjuice could rarely duplicate the exact pitch of a singer if indeed they could mount a convincing imitation, beat and rhythm, all that nice juicy stuff. A lot could be said about singing passwords, even if Severus hated them, come to think of it, that was another advantage.**

Deciding that McGonagall and the class were a small threat he decided to get Hermione's opinion on what the hell was going on. Hermione had changed a lot during the course of the war but she was still ahead of the rest when it came to academic pursuits, even if her love of the library had somewhat diminished over the years.

"Mione any idea of what that thing was?"

"A portal?" she replied innocently trying to lighten the dark mood in the room, McGonagall who she had noticed and somehow managed not to panic at the sight of was considerably on edge. Even though she had very little idea on what was going on she didn't not want to frighten innocent bystanders "Harry, Harry, Harry I would have thought you would know what a portal was by now, after all you were taught, all those times you've used them I am disappointed in you Harry."

Harry then knew she knew next to nothing, he sighed and turned to McGonagall, no, Minerva.

They were going to need more information if they hoped to figure this out.

Dropping the dangerous look as much as it was possible these days, though not the underlying dangerous demeanour, Harry put on the most polite expression he could muster. Time to ask questions. Ever since he had arrived and seen Minerva here, alive and well, he had wondered, was the one, possibly the only one who could answer their questions here? Was Albus here? That however was not the question he asked, that would be far too suspicious they had just bypassed some of the most complex wards ever made after all and with the little performance he had just put on he wouldn't be surprised if she thought him in the employ of some Dark Wizard wishing to take over the school. Nah he'd be pretty disappointed if he had only made the grade as a lackey, nah she probably thought he was the Dark Lord trying to take over, not the lackey. Smoothly and almost unnoticeably he put his daggers back into his robes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the many advantages of being the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was the ability to sense when something out of the ordinary was occurring within the castle. It was an ability all Headmasters of the school attained after performing a ritual that linked them to the school upon obtaining the office. The link was one of the most powerful in the world, as most of its kind had been lost hundreds of years ago, however the link fluctuated depending on the emergency of a event and the amount the castle trusted the person currently in possession of the link. Hogwarts, had been a castle mainly built on 'light' standards and by 'light' wizards it was therefore no surprise that the castle tended to favour Headmasters who were not 'dark'.

On the rare occasion that the castle had been overtaken by Dark Wizards in the past within a day the castle had found itself back in 'light' hands. Therefore it was no real surprise that Hogwarts stood as a shining beacon of Hope during Dark times.

Albus Dumbledore, current Headmaster of the illustrious school was having a sudden strong urge to go to the Transfiguration Classroom. He was not particularly worried, whatever was going on there was not a threat, at least not to the castle or the students, but the castle did want him to go there for some reason or another. He wondered what could be so important, he had overheard Minerva complaining at lunch, she had seventh year Gryffindor's this afternoon. Very curious.

The last time he had felt an urge this strong he had to save the dungeons from becoming a pile of rubble curtesy of the Weasley Twins, and subsequently save the Weasley twins from Severus Snape. Yet this was undefinable different.

He arrived to find the class huddled towards the door facing two very interesting individuals; both overflowing with power. 

The first was a tall late teen, though he looked older. He frowned a little at the Battle Robes the young man wore yet at the sight of them he did not feel threatened, the castle obviously trusted him. He noticed the blood staining the robes, yet none of it seemed to be his own and the young man did not seemed bothered by this, that slightly concerned him but he put it out of his mind and continued to study the young man. It was curious, the way power seemed to flow off this man, in waves, yet the waves were not threatening and they were very well controlled. The young man reminded him of someone, he just could not put his finger on whom…

The young man's companion was female; her clothing flattered her, she wore a black leather waist coat and black dress pants, her hair pulled back into a loose bun that allowed for a few curly strands of hair to fall out here and there like she had not the time to properly put them in place. Both looked the young people looked extremely weary, yet they seemed prepared for whatever would happen. The young woman also exuded a strong magical signature, no where near her companions but strong all the same, in fact the signature strongly reminded him of one of his recent pupils Hermione Granger, yet it was essentially different and somewhat stronger.

He arrived just in time to hear the young man in a very diplomatic tone of voice "I was wondering if we could speak with the person in charge here? We are really quite lost at the moment…" he trailed off, obviously unsure of what else to say.

Albus wondered how exactly they had arrived in the Transfiguration classroom, after a few nasty attacks from strong Ministry supporters he had warded the castle so that port-key travel would not work, the only way in now was through Floo in his office or through the Front Gates or the Forest, both warded to alert him of any comings or goings. All passageways in or out of the castle that he knew of were watched, and well it was baffling, the Transfiguration Classroom was so far from anywhere…

Minerva cut him off, "That would be Headmaster Dumbledore, I will escort you if you wish…" clearly with the underlying meaning that 'if you wish' meant 'you have little choice in the matter'.

Deciding that that was his cue he decided to but in, usually he would just make his way back up to his office and wait for them to arrive but these people were very interesting and he meant to figure out at least some of the puzzle they presented, preferably as soon as possible.

"No need Minerva, No need, I am already here and who are these two fascinating young people?"


	2. 2 Arrivals

Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 2

Arrivals.

Albus did not need to look at Minerva to know the way she would react to his presence; initially she would be surprised to see him before calming down and allowing her courage to grow in his presence, with an undercurrent of protectiveness that all the staff held for him, she would likely insist on accompanying him until their visitors intentions could be determined. No it was not Minerva's expression that interested him instead his gaze was riveted on the two strangely expressionless individuals whose identity's he did not know.

The two blank expressionless stares were impassive and impossible to read, though when he first looked into the eyes of the pair he was rewarded with a quick flash of emotion passing through their eyes, to fast to determine, but definitely not malicious in any way. They held themselves straight and tall, proudly as if nothing they could throw at them would hurt them, and yet, there was something off in their stance. No their manner, it was as if they posed a threat to them, though not a threat they had been expecting.

They had not moved from their rigid stance since he had set foot in the room, they had not moved their eyes from him as if everyone else was suddenly unimportant.

They were obviously thinking about something but their expressions gave nothing away no emotions no hints as to what they were thinking, nothing. That should have started sending out danger signals he inwardly noted, it was not a skill that could be seen in many people, and used to this degree it should have been somewhat frightening to see when they should have had no need for cultivating the skill in the present environment. Perhaps being cooped up in the position of Headmaster since the defeat of Voldemort and before that Grindelwald was finally getting to him. Then again he had always enjoyed puzzles, and these two certainly fit into the puzzle category, he was going to enjoy figuring this puzzle out.

Inwardly he shook his head at himself, he knew nothing! Nothing about the pair except that they somehow caused a disturbance in Minerva's classroom big enough to cause the castle to involve the Headmaster, not to mention that for some reason they had Minerva near quaking in her boots. And all he was worried about was the puzzle they presented. He surprised even himself with his eccentricity sometimes. 

Minerva did not seem to have an answer ready for him and neither of the other two seemed in a hurry to give him an answer.

Suddenly the boy seemed to jump out of his stupor and flashed him a signal using Alastor Moody's personalised hand talk, something he had not seen since the end of the war with Lord Voldemort, something a child like the boy should not, could not know, he would have still been in his cradle the last time that was used. Yet he had and the message was only too clear, 'not here'.

Deciding then and there he was going to have to take the chance, if the child knew of Alastor's hand talk well enough to use it himself there was no telling what_ else_ he could know. There were so many possibilities and none of them should be discussed in front of the students. 

Happy to oblige now he continued on barely pausing for a breath, "Never mind, never mind, we shall get to that later, if you would please follow me to my office." Albus inclined his head towards the door; it was not really a request, even if the castle did not deem them a threat, they, or at least the boy, obviously knew too much to let go without questioning.  In any case he was not about to allow the pair of them a free reign in his castle, especially without giving any reason for being there, or for that matter information about themselves. At the very least they would need an escort off school grounds. Not to mention the fact that they would also have to explain how they _had_ managed to get onto the school grounds without tripping the alarms.

The two did not seem to hesitate as they immediately made their way from the back of the classroom to the door, though how you could tell whether they hesitated from those unchanging faces and unchanging stances he did not know. They walked straight out the door ahead of the Headmaster seemingly uncaring about leaving their backs exposed. The young man, he noticed, moved with a deadly grace that seemed instinctive, and the young lady seemed to follow his example and although too moved as elegantly as the most powerful aristocrats next to her companion she seemed clumsy and awkward. 

They waited for him outside the classroom door, still without showing any signs of starting up conversation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For Harry and Hermione it had been a shock seeing Minerva alive and well, they should have expected it. But they didn't.

Albus, he was alive, here, right in front of them, they practically froze solid at the sight of him. Of all those they had lost by far the most shocking and hard-hitting death for them had been the death of Albus Dumbledore. Only one other death had come close to invoking the depression and sense of loss they had felt when Albus died, Ron.

Ron had been their fallback point someone who could always be counted on to pick them up when it all became too much, Ron had been a pillar of strength for them. The strategist had proved his worth not in the field as Harry and Hermione had initially but in the planning of attacks and counter-attacks. He may not have earned the same fame as Harry and Hermione, the public spotlight but in the background everyone who knew what Ron did admired and looked up to him.

Yes Ron's death had hit them hard but Albus's death had hit them harder. He had been their teacher, their mentor, and their father figure, their only friend when they were isolated from everyone during their training. If Ron was a pillar Albus was their foundation stone, a constant they had unrealistically expected to be there forever. Albus's death though had a greater effect on them, not only had they lost him, the world, the cause had lost him. They had been forced to deal with their grief in private so that the public, the people would not lose hope, they had been forced to act strong when they had been at their weakest put aside the fears they secretly shared and act like they were still as hopeful as they had always been.  

Jolting himself from his thoughts Harry noticed that Albus had led them off into some obscure passage way that most certainly did _not_ lead to Albus's office, at least not directly, either Albus was stalling to gather time to think or he was testing them in some way or another. Either way Harry had had enough of wandering aimlessly, he wanted to get to the bottom of this, whatever was going on here and he wanted to get it over and done with as quickly as possible, he did not enjoy being in the dark, even if it was only temporarily.

Sweeping past Albus with the deadly grace and poise of an experienced warrior, calm and in control he took the lead made three right turns followed by a left and stood waiting calmly at the gargoyle waiting for Albus to announce the password and grant them entry.

Normally Harry would have been happy to follow Albus feigning ignorance and taking an hour and a half to complete a five minute journey but not right now the whole portal business had him on edge. That here on this side of the portal there were a lot of 'supposed to be dead' people walking around perfectly healthy only helped to set him further on edge. He wanted answers not an extended scenic tour of the school.

Albus just smiled adopting a 'knowing' look and cheerfully boomed out the password "Smarties" and walked spritely up the spiral staircase that led to his office.

It was a little shocking to walk into 'Albus's' Office as it had been after all this time, even if he knew better he half expected to see the paper shewn disaster area that had been the office he had recently occupied. Instead the office was immaculate, papers sitting in perfectly ordered piles, not one piece of paper sticking out anywhere. It was disgusting. But Hermione seemed to approve.

Too bad for her, she liked order and he enjoyed living in a little mess, growing up with neat freaks like the Dursley's for the duration his deprived childhood ensured that he developed a mild love of chaos. It was probably inspired by a need to spite them in any way he could, not that he minded, he liked the way he turned out even though he regretted the way he had been forced to spend his childhood.

Without waiting to be asked Harry plonked himself in one of the large and comfy leather chairs facing Albus desk swinging one leg over the arm rest, seemingly perfectly at ease.

Hermione with a shake of her head sat down as well not waiting for permission or an invite; it wasn't like there was anything else to do. Once she would have scolded him for his lack of respect or proper manners, a part of her still held onto that, but the war didn't really leave time for being proper or having manners, it just wasn't Harry's way and it wasn't really hers anymore either. 

Training had changed them both drastically in some respects, Harry more though he was more confident than he was before. He no longer cared it seemed about what others said and thought about him, or at least he no longer showed that he did, she was sure that the many hurtful little exchanges he had caught while people thought he couldn't hear them hurt him deeply.

They were truly unique Albus thought as he surveyed them over his half-rimmed spectacles, neither squirmed nor even moved under his gaze; in fact they seemed perfectly at ease, something even the older staff struggled to maintain at times. Even if he was a little miffed about their lack of manners he decided it would be best to put aside his disgruntlement and work with the matter at hand.

After Albus's initial intense gaze Harry and Hermione found themselves being picked apart with his eyes, like they were a puzzle he just could not put together. It had been too long in their books since the great Albus Dumbledore had been stumped, and it gave them great pleasure to be the cause of the problem that had him so far out at sea.

Seeing that Albus would be content to just study them for a while longer the pair allowed their eyes to wander the room. They were amazed at the differences; the office looked exactly the way it had before the castle had been attacked, before the first successful or rather semi-successful attack had partially disintegrated the castles protections. The office Hermione was glad to see no longer looked as though a bomb had hit it, as it did after the attack.  And neither did it hold the perpetually untidy quality it had held during Harry's brief ownership.  
  


Deciding that enough was enough after five minutes of waiting Harry asked the first question. Even though it would give Albus more control over the conversations path he was ready to concede that point in favour of not having to sit here for hours waiting for Albus to make the first move. He never had been very good at waiting.

Harry had no doubt Albus would know what was going on, he always knew. Right now Harry knew exactly what he needed, answers, and he had a fair idea where to find them, from Albus. He didn't know what that portal was, where it had taken him, hell he didn't know a lot of things, but he needed to know and his brain really had not recovered from the initial and continual shock it had taken today. He just did not have the mental capacity at the moment to deduce his own conclusions.

"Albus, what exactly is going on here?" he asked keeping his voice as calm as possible, he was calm of course, as calm as he could be. It took an awful lot to faze Harry Potter and he was long past the slightly fazed point of the spectrum. Albus would have the answer, he had to have the answer.

"Lemon Drop?"  Albus asked hoping to divert attention away from the question he had no idea the answer to, hopefully he would be able to sufficiently divert their attention and get them talking, that way he could gather more information and make an informed guess.

Of course it didn't hurt that the distraction came in the form of his beloved Lemon Drops, giving him an excuse to eat another of his favourite treats. He had first discovered Lemon Drops during the war with Grindelwald when he had attended a meeting with the muggle command authorities to co-ordinate attacks. With the large-scale magical nature of the war it had been impossible to totally segregate themselves from the muggles, and all the muggles involved had their memories modified following the war. They had recessed for a small break and he had decided to go for a walk and get some fresh air, where of course he had spotted a candy store, and being himself could not resist going to have a look. In addition to being delicious the lemon drops had served him well over the years, distracting those in his office and giving him an overall appearance of being somewhat senile, not to mention the looks on peoples faces when he interrupted their important messages to ask if they would like a lemon drop. Ah yes those looks were a priceless and a source of great amusement to him.

But alas it seemed the youth knew him well, though from where he could not fathom, not only did he use his first name freely but called him on his stalling tactics, something no one else had ever picked up on, or at least never mentioned, he was one very focussed individual.

"So you don't know." He stated blandly, rolling his eyes heavenward to emphasize his annoyance. Why oh why couldn't Albus just give him straight answers?

Deciding to intervene before the two of them started degrading themselves with petty squabbling Hermione interjected "Enough of that!" she said sharply glaring at each of them in turn, sometimes they were like overgrown children, inwardly she snorted, in fact in most respects they were overgrown children. Glaring at both of them Hermione forcefully took over the situation whilst Albus contented himself watching them both for clues.

The boy showed no outward sign of being affected by the glare or the words but kept his mouth shut anyway allowing the girl to take control of the situation, allowing was the correct word, for it was clear that the boy would still be in control if he wanted to be.

What really interested him though was that the boy knew him well enough to call him on his stalling tactics and he had absolutely no idea who he was. It had to be some kind of appearance change, charms were out of the question although they had more than enough magic surrounding them they didn't have any 'on' them, so that left some kind of potion, a fairly long lasting one as they had already been in his company for almost half and hour and obviously had not refreshed it. There were several potions it could be depending on how 'changed' their appearance was the longest an appearance changing potion could last without renewal was twelve hours and that was for the lesser changes.

"Now," said the girl "Since Albus obviously doesn't know what's going on here we had better start discussing what we do know so we can figure it out. Are there any objections?" she asked already anticipating what their answer would be "Well then lets get started."

"Ah before we begin would you kindly give me your names?" the Headmaster decided to concede the fact that he did not know their names, it was clear that he would need to know their names to continue the discussion. The girl obviously expected this to be a totally open conversation with no secrets and nothing barred. Normally he would have balked away from such a conversation but he was intrigued and if he was right and this was someone under an appearance altering potion he would know the person well enough anyway.

Hermione was shocked that the Headmaster did not know who she was, even more shocking was the fact that he didn't know or didn't remember who Harry was either. She was more than shocked; after all he had spent a great deal of time on their training. But that was before the little incident with the portal and she was beginning to get a very bad feeling that the portal was a lot more than it seemed. Well it had to be more than it seemed because there were a lot of things going on here that should not be going on, like dead people being alive. Overall she thought both she and Harry were handling this situation very well.

Harry of course was a lot more shocked by the fact the headmaster did not recognize him, after all he had terrorized the school since his sorting, well maybe not his sorting but since his first year without a doubt. His highly dangerous adventures, which more often than not stopped something bad from happening, not to mention the highly advanced training he had taken part in since his fifth year. Harry decided it best for him to sit in stunned silence while Hermione and Albus worked out what was going on. It would not be easy, it was not common practice for him to just sit back, and more often than not he took a lead role in discussions. Those discussions however were on battle strategies a subject in which he was well versed. This however whatever it was would definitely not be a subject he was well versed in, he really only had one or two specialties in magic and they were Offensive and Defensive Magic. Most everything else he had a basic knowledge of a base to touch back on. Deciding to focus on something he knew Harry set himself to observe and counter any problems that might come up, like attacking Death Eaters or something, not that attacking Death Eaters was likely from what he had seen and felt around the castle, but hey he could hope couldn't he? He had never been any good with really intellectual discussions anyway, which was what this promised to be, he could take part if he really wanted to but generally it took up too much effort in keeping up with the flow of conversation which tended to jump from topic to topic.

Still slightly put off by the statement that Albus didn't know them Hermione decided to stop gaping like a fish and answer the mans question. There were a lot of strange things going on here.

"Ok then," Hermione started "I am Hermione Granger and this," she said motioning towards her partner, "Is Harry Potter, we'll save the full titles and such for later." Catching onto Harry's intention to stay out of this and unable to resist goading him a little.

Albus though was still too stuck on the statement to take any notice of the jab. They could not possibly be who they claimed to be, Hermione Granger, although she looked like enough to this girl certainly did not behave in any manner similar to her. And Harry Potter had been dead eighteen years; he ought to know as the boy's parents still blamed him for the child's death.

Deciding to hear out whatever story these people, whoever they were, had made up before he started 'questioning' them Albus only nodded for her to continue.    
  


The girl continued with a curt nod, oddly reminiscent of Minerva "Well I think we should start with a logical chronological retelling of events." Hermione said, Albus nodded his head in agreement, Harry continued surveying the office with the practiced eyes of a soldier seeming not to have heard a word.

Clearing her throat and glaring at Harry in annoyance she continued looking pointedly at Harry "That means YOU, Harry have to stop acting like a brainless moron and start explaining." She smiled sweetly and entirely fakely at his responding glare.

Harry reluctantly stopped his observation to concentrate on explaining, which was really quite the joke, he was the one who had to explain when he was the one who probably understood the least of what was going on here.

"Well I'll try but I really haven't got a great handle on the situation at the moment, so you'll have to be satisfied with the brief version."

"Alright I suppose this starts when Albus died," he said pointedly looking at Albus with a pained expression on his face.  
"Your last words told me that when the final battle was finished to go through the Golden Portal, which I did, and then I ended up in the Transfiguration classroom and since then have seen and talked to several dead people." Harry said giving the extremely short version of event so he could go back to observing. His explanation though short gave to many implications about how much this was disturbing him. He did not like it.  
  


"Thankyou for the highly elaborate and detailed description Harry" Hermione snapped irritably, but she was not surprised by the brief answer, true it would have been nice to have all the itibity details of what had gone on since the moment the portal appeared, but as it was Harry it was extremely unlikely to happen. Harry never revealed everything he knew on a subject always kept something back that only he could know. Not to mention that Harry was not known for highly detailed analyses of past events, most of his battle reports were the same, as small as he could possibly manage to get away with. He wasn't big on history, least of all recent history, because most of it was about or involved him in some way. The exception of course was any information on a subject he could use. That was information that could be used in the future from the subjects past. That was not history, at least not to Harry.

Hermione sighed; she could not honestly expect more from Harry. She herself shared Harry's panic at the situation, not that either of them showed it openly. Harry's explanation had also revealed that he did not know much about the situation either. Sighing again Hermione kicked off on her part of the tale.

"When Harry entered the portal he disappeared off the tactical maps." Seeing Albus was perplexed she elaborated "The tactical maps keep track of all our soldiers while they are on the battlefield, they record deaths who fights who and the positions of soldiers and key people, being a key person and someone I was keeping a close eye on when Harry went missing it was noticed almost immediately. There are only three ways to remove a person from the tactical map, death which is recorded on another map however this only happens if there is a body, apparition or leaving the battlefield through any method or to be remove by the maps keeper. Since Harry was not removed by the keeper, me, that left two options leaving or death, I didn't get time to check before the portal opened up in front of me. I could see Harry and his surroundings quite clearly so I went through the portal and ended up here."

"So Albus any ideas on what is going on here because seriously I'm at a loss."

Albus's mind was still running over what he had learned of the two so far and what he had just learned from their explanations, either they were very good actors or they were from another universe. Following their explanations he was leaning towards alternate universe, there were a lot of things that just did not fit well if they weren't, like how they had gotten onto Hogwarts grounds, their magical power and the need for tactical maps and soldiers. From what they had told him and through the underlying messages he had partially understood Harry and Hermione seemed to have been very close to him. Which would explain why they are so comfortable and the pained look on Harry's face when he was talking about my death, both their shocks that I did not know their names and then the fact Harry trusted me, the other me, enough to jump through a portal that went to who knows where.

Albus looked thoughtful before turning to Harry and Hermione. "I am not entirely sure but I have a theory but it has been so long, I will have to investigate." The old wizard looking quite excited at the prospect of an investigation, it seemed he had not had a lot to do in all these years.

They just stared at him, stared; clearly expect him to reveal his suspicions. Sighing he found himself giving in to their stares and explaining. 

"My theory is that I sent you here from an alternate universe, However I have no clue as to how you got here, perhaps in your world I did more research into the possibility than I did here and made a discovery I don't know..." he trailed off once again adopting a thoughtful expression.

"Ah well in any case it will be awhile before I can tell you for sure; in the meantime, the ministry must be informed." This earned a groan from both of the late teens, which told him they were not at all fond of the Ministry. The aged wizard however could not keep the twinkle out of his eyes, something Harry had learned it paid to pay attention to. And to be very cautious of. He sent the Headmaster a curious look; however the Headmaster didn't seem to be sharing.

  
"Why don't you two go freshen up," he said with a pointed look at Harry's battle robes, which were currently encrusted with dry and drying blood. "I am sure I could find you both some suitable garments around here somewhere."

  
Harry just shook his head and said "I will be fine, I have some spare with me" Hermione snorted, "I am sure THOSE clothes will go down well with a non war-time ministry" she said, Harry just smiled at her sweetly and continued, "We might need something for Herm though."  
  


Albus disappeared into a room hidden behind one of the portraits of a former Headmaster and came back with a set of royal blue dress-robes and all the accessories for Hermione who raised an eyebrow. Why on earth would she need dress robes? And why did Albus have spare dress robes in her size, well close enough to her size, lying around anyway? Both Harry and Albus however seemed to know all about it. note to self; interrogate Harry.

In any case she took them gratefully and Albus directed them to the teacher's baths, which not surprisingly they already knew how to find. Albus probably found it a little suspicious, but not overly so as guests were known to use the Teachers baths on extended stays. 

He didn't however bother to inform them of the current Minister for Magic, a man he thought to be Harry's father from the strange likenesses between the two not to mention name and age, would be likely to visit when he received the owl he was about to send him, he did however ask them to return to his office afterwards for some dinner and discussions. 

He couldn't help but be a little curious however about exactly what Harry was planning on wearing.

They certainly were an odd pair, in Hermione's case nothing like her alter-ego in personality or traits it seemed. And Harry was a far stretch from what he would have expected from someone who grew up with James and Sirius as role models. Sighing Albus gave up on his thoughts and set himself to composing a set of letters.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry finally managed to drag himself out of the shower half an hour later feeling extremely refreshed. Harry had not realised how much the stench on blood and other bodily entrails on his clothes had been affecting his stomach so much until he had taken them off and jumped in the shower. His nose crinkled up, as he smelled the odour rising off his soiled battle robes, all the way from the other side of the room. Definitely not nice. It was surprising what your nose could become accustomed to when exposed for long periods of time. At times he thought the stench of blood had been ingrained into his skin. The stench gone now but in his mind the blood was still on his hands, a part of himself he could never remove, a stain on his soul. He had the blood of promising lives on his hands, lives he had sacrificed in order to achieve his goals.

Sure everyone who was recruited accepted that they 'might' die on the battlefield; they had accepted the fact from the moment they had entered the military or the Order of the Phoenix or the Aurors or any other organization that fought against Voldemort. But until they witnessed it first hand, the death, the destruction they could never truly understand what they were really signing up for, but by then it was too late. They never knew the odds, how truly small the number of recruits that lasted more than the first six months was.

The first six months for recruits were served on the front lines, and the front lines were one of the bloodiest places in existence, and they had remained that way until earlier today. Today the war had ended. Well he thought it was today time might pass differently here or travelling through dimensions. He would never know he supposed, the date that he had finally defeated Voldemort he had long given up keeping track of the date, it was just no longer important one day ran into the next and before you knew it a year had passed. Life for him had just been one big blur since Albus died, a blur he had dragged himself through because he felt obligated to, and because he lacked the courage to end it all.

He had often pondered on the thought of suicide, but pondering on it was as far as it had ever gotten. He had a responsibility to too many people. He had a responsibility and a job to do; he had people that loved him. Of course in the end there wasn't much left of the people who loved him Sirius, Albus, Ron and oh so many others, even Snape finally succumbed, one by one they had all died out and left only one spark of light in his life, Hermione.

One spark of light, one spark of the life he once had, the life he should have had, Hermione was wonderful, great, and fantastic but she was only one person and she was not his conscience, the conscience that berated him every day for every life he had failed to save.   He loved her, he knew that but she was only one small speck of light in a sea of darkness. Without her he didn't know what he would have done, how he would have retained his sanity. Most likely he would have turned into the cold heartless bastard he was forced to play every day of the war, cold and emotionless, no longer caring. He didn't know which he would have preferred insanity or that.

Harry knew now what Albus was trying to do when he sent him here, both himself and Hermione. He was trying to save them from doing something stupid, to give them another chance at life. He would not waste Albus's gift he vowed to himself. It was time to let go. and shape a new future for himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Hermione was still in the shower; it had been awhile since she had had the pleasure. Having been to involved in operations to take enough time out for such trivial things as showers Hermione's had been few and far between. Lines for the few showers available were always a mile long to long and waiting around was not something she had time for. The remote locations did have some disadvantages including lack of civilized amenities, it was much easier if less enjoyable to just cast a simple cleaning charm on yourself. Now however Hermione had a shower and she was enjoying the fact that she had the time for it. After all there was no reason to rush back, Dumbledore would probably start questioning them on their lives next, something sure to bring back painful memories.  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Harry had began his habit of magically carrying around an extra set of clothes early on in the war, often he would move from base to base so quickly gathering reports and giving out orders that he was never sure where he would end up spending the night. More than once he had been forced to borrow clothes from someone within the base, it was not very good for his image, the image he had been forced to maintain at all costs the image of a general who could not possibly make mistakes, who could not be viewed as human. was a quite difficult spell but well worth it binding the extra clothes and several other important items to his person, quite handy as it minimized damage from spies if he carried important documents of plans on his person at all times instead of leaving them lying about where any old chum could read them.

Of course there were several 'documents' left lying around to root out the spies and such but the light side was incredibly secure, their spies were kept secret from all but the top level of management, and were rarely found out or caught. The Enemies loyal spies and loyal servants also frequently found themselves caught after handing over false information, or 'disposed' of by their own side for gathering incorrect information. It really was a quite ingenious system.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Walking back down to Albus's office he started to wonder whether it was a good idea to impose this image of himself, this part of his personality on the Ministry.

  
'Mione was probably right though, as always. His clothes would not go down with the ministry's people whoever they were, they definitely would not inspire trust, but well to bad for them. He thought he had earned the right to intimidate people a little with his presence, and he happened to like these clothes thank you very much.

Not to mention that if they proved difficult he could just scare the shit out of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Although she would never admit it, Hermione found it incredibly amusing to watch people start squirming when they spotted Harry and his outfit. It was very funny when you knew what a softie he really was under all the intimidating clothing. The feeling of power that often rolled off him in waves only added to the effect, though most people did not know that what they mistook for extremely powerful was really only a fraction of what he was really capable of. Harry's power lurked beneath the surface ready to appear at any moment. In the past Harry's clothes had served a purpose. People were hardly about to betray someone they were consciously or subconsciously scared of, something Voldemort had evidently done correctly. But unlike Voldemort Harry's people actually respected him, he was harsh but fair and also a hell of a lot more lenient than Voldemort.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Here he could probably do away with the clothes but he had become so accustomed to wearing them, he didn't really want to get rid of them, he liked them.

  
Harry wore a sleeveless black muscle shirt, black baggy pants, leather gauntlets on his arms concealing all manner of small weapons, you know daggers, poisoned daggers, poison darts he even had a multipurpose screw driver in there even though he rarely used it to screw anything other than peoples brains, he wasn't entirely sure how it had ended up there but well when he had lost some of his other weapons in a battle it had come in handy. He'd kept it ever since. In addition he wore Gryffindor's sword on his side a large black cloak with a very overlarge hood, but the most interesting part of the outfit was the clasp that held the cloak, clear and noticeable was the war mage insignia.  
  


It took a lot of power and knowledge to earn a Mage insignia and they were highly prized by their owners. The last Mage before Harry had been a Healing Mage during the fifteen hundreds and not very skilled for a Mage either.

To earn the insignia and the title you had to forgo testing, the testing was vigorous and almost impossible to pass, almost.

The testing area, over a mile under the Ministry of Magic was enchanted to only give out the insignia to those that passed the test, to only allow out those that passed the test. There had been a huge uproar when he had announced he was going to do the test, most believed he was too important to risk, but he had just ignored them and gone anyway, only Albus had supported his decision.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

  
Albus had not yet returned and he had to wonder what he was up to. Albus rarely left his office except for meals and important business, with their arrival he had to wonder what important business he could be attending to, after all what could possibly be more important than the arrival of two misplaced persons from another dimension? The brief thought of Voldemort flicked to his mind unbidden but he quickly shoved it to the back of his mind because everyone seemed much to cheerful for a Dark Lord to be running around, even Minnie was surprised about the two dangerous looking individuals popping up in her classroom if they were at war the teachers would have been prepared for anything even if it was the safest establishment in England.  
  
Harry sat quietly with his thoughts allowing his thoughts to drift to more entertaining subjects like the time Sirius charmed all his opponents into thinking he was fighting in only a pair of Spiderman boxers, needless to say they were somewhat distracted and many who fought with him ended up dead or captured in THAT particular battle, his godfathers tactics had never failed to amuse Harry, a strange combination of jokes and seriousness. Harry did not allow himself to think of who else might be alive here; he hoped Sirius was here he missed him a lot and didn't know how he had survived so long without his guidance, even if it was a little warped, Sirius had never failed to brighten his day, but no it was best not to think of it he would be too disappointed if they weren't alive not to mention bringing up painful memories of those he had left behind.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
James was curious in spite of himself. He was on his way to see what the old coot wanted, he was going, but he had in no way forgotten his grudge against the old man. He knew he was being unreasonable, the Minister and the Headmaster of the largest school of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the country should be on good terms. But they weren't. He really did not think he would need a guard of Aurors and Hit Wizards and Unspeakables but the escort would let the old fool know he meant to be here for business only and forego any personal conversations. He didn't know what the fool wanted but whatever it was it couldn't be good, it was Albus Dumbledore after all, he thought spitefully, nothing good ever eventuated from HIM.

  
He had put his trust in the old man and he had let him down. He would never make the same mistake again; he would never again trust Albus Dumbledore.  
  
Deep down he knew that it wasn't really Albus's fault no one had suspected him, not even him he was loathe to admit, no one knew of what he could do, what he would do, but Albus was the leader he was supposed to know these things. There had to have been something Albus could have done to uncover him.  
  
Albus of course knew of his grudge, he hardly kept it a secret, so the question was what did he want? Well whatever it was it had better be good, the world coming to an end or something because otherwise he was likely to blow the old man into the next dimension. Who cared if he got thrown into Azkaban he would be doing the world a favour.  
  
He stormed up to the castle, not noticing the absence of students in the halls, a sure sign of something important going on, and if he looked at his watch he would have been able to find the school community easily as it was dinner time and everyone, including the headmaster, and excluding Harry and Hermione were in the Great Hall listening to the announcement of their guests (known only as Harry and Hermione from another dimension more would be revealed as it is known)

  
James continued storming, oblivious to everything, towards the headmaster's office.  
  


His 'guards' noticed though, they may not have had they been professional guards but this was the Minister of Magic, and they were the police force of the wizarding world they were paid to notice strange goings on.

  
Unfortunately for the 'guards' they were the unlucky and only ones still in the office at the time the Minister had stormed in requesting an escort, if it had been anyone else they would have told him they were to 'senior' to act as bodyguards, had it been anyone else they probably wouldn't have even asked. They could look VERY intimidating when they wanted to.

  
As he neared the entrance two Unspeakables took the lead, if they were going to do this they may as well do it properly muttering a spell they opened the gargoyle and led the way up the stairs, much to James displeasure but he was too inquisitive and slightly mad to care. He just followed on at the same pace up the stairs to the circular office he had known so well as a boy and as a man, the office he had not been even close to in eighteen years.  
  


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

  
Harry heard them coming, they made to much noise, Herm never made that much of a racket even before training she had always been light-footed, and there was more than one, so it couldn't be Albus.

  
He wouldn't take any chances; his brain knew this world was one at peace but his body and the instincts he had relied on so heavily the last few years were screaming danger. In his head he knew, thought, this world was at peace but clearly the message had not gotten through to his instincts, they may have only lasted a few years of his short life, but the Dark Wars dominated his existence and deep down he hadn't really accepted that they were over; he was not ready for a world of peace.  
  
In his own world the change would have been gradual with those around him also cautious as well, but here he was an genetically improved wolf amongst sheep so used to peace that they stomped around like a herd of elephants.

  
He could feel his body moving and somewhere deep down he knew he was doing the wrong thing but all was forgotten in the action, he was not afraid but he knew he was outnumbered, he did not know his enemy and he guessed there were about eight of them. They were nearing the top of the stairs, they would be reaching for the door handle, and NOW.

  
He slipped out of the shadow of the doorway and wrap an arm around the slightly shorter man, dagger coming out of the gauntlet he was wearing on his arm and coming to rest on the skin above the mans jugular vein. He spun bring the captive with him facing the crowd at the doorway, his movement was so quick they almost missed the turn, he now had a human shield between him and the group of Aurors, tow Unspeakables he noted not counting the one he was holding, four Aurors and someone behind them he could not see, probably the one they were guarding he didn't hold himself like the others, too tense, not a threat or at least not a serious one.

  
It was fortunate for the 'guards' that he was wearing his hood up they would not react well to the near duplicate of their charge capturing the second most senior Unspeakable in the group, with ease.  
  
The 'guards' raised their wands as one to this man who had one of theirs waiting for him to make his next move. But it would never happen because while they were waiting for him to move he was waiting for them.

  
Luckily before the situation got out of control, well more than it already had the sound of footsteps running up the stairs grabbed everyone's attention, however the 'guards' still kept their eyes and wands trained on the confused War Mage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Hermione felt refreshed as she made her way back from the teacher bathroom, she luckily had not met with any teachers during the considerably long period of time she spent in there. The more she thought about the lack of activity the more she thought of the time, it seemed around the time they used to have dinner in the castle but she couldn't be sure.

  
As she neared the gargoyle she noticed it was hanging open, she'd never seen that before but whatever it meant it couldn't be good, she quickened her pace and rounded the corner bounding up the stairs making as little noise as she could in her haste.

  
It took her all of three seconds to realize what must have happened, Harry had over reacted, she should have expected something like this would happen.  
  
The Ministry Wizards quickly decided she was no threat, which in a situation where she was not going to work with them would be a mistake, a very costly mistake. Luckily she was somewhat on their side, somewhat meaning she was not about to slaughter them.

  
As it was one of the lesser Aurors come to usher her out of the room, she just brushed him aside easily and fully entered the room, ignoring everyone but Harry. She knew there was only one way to get through to him when he was like this.

  
"HARRY JAMES POTTER, LET HIM GO NOW!" she yelled as loud as she could. He quickly lowered the knife but kept the other wizard in front of him. Shock tactics always worked she thought with a smirk he was starting to come back, the glazed look in his eyes fading.  
  


"JUST WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING, ATTACKING ALLIES REALLY I THOUGHT YOU WERE BETTER THAN THAT!" she shrieked, she didn't really know whether or not they were trustworthy, they were from the ministry after all but in the end in their world the Unspeakables and Aurors had been some of their greatest allies, when they realized the ministry was pulling the wool over their eyes that is. It did not really matter whether or not the others were allies or not as long as it got him thinking instead of reacting.

  
She could see him returning to a more approachable state and stopped yelling at him.

  
The 'guards' did not know what to think. 

The man they were guarding in the background hidden behind a wall of Aurors and Unspeakables did not know what to think. Save for vague feelings of hope, stirring anger and disbelief, shock.

  
'Potter did she just call him Potter, Harry James, it can't be. My son is dead' he thought; yet he was still numb and he could not move. Somehow he knew this hooded man was the reason Dumbledore had called him here today. Dumbledore it seemed was playing his hand at the game so many others had already tried and failed.

  
As if replying to his thoughts Albus calmly made his way into the room, although he had lowered the dagger Harry had still held the Unspeakable in front of him, to stop the more trigger or should he say wand happy Aurors in the room, maybe even an Unspeakable would have had a go at him after an attack on one of their own, he wasn't quite sure.

  
"Ah what have we here, have a bit of a misunderstanding did we?" said Albus, "I must apologise Harry I did not think they would arrive so soon. Else I would have been here to meet them" he seemed to radiate calm and everyone in the room seemed to temporarily forget the events of the past few minutes, everyone except Harry who was still wary.  
  
"Please, please take a seat we still have one more guest to arrive." he said absently looking towards the fireplace. You normally could not enter Hogwarts through the Floo network, only if the Headmaster gave his express permission and only if he considered it an emergency, which it wasn't really but it was exciting and he had never minded bending the rules a little.

No one but Harry and Hermione noticed that until that moment their had only been two chairs, The chairs Albus had conjured for his guests looked so 'in place' that they seemed as though they had always been there. The 'guards' though they tried to hide it seemed to be impressed by his foresight.  
  
After all these years he had no doubt once she made up her mind Lily Potter would be here, and no doubt in her haste she would forget small details like not being able to Floo to Hogwarts.

  
They sat in silence for several minutes awaiting the arrival of the last guest; Harry had yet to witness his look alike who was still being shielded by his 'guards' which would probably be a good thing. It would not have been good for him to freak out again so soon after his last episode.

James however had only thing running through his head was 'there must be some mistake, my hearings going, yes that's it my hearing not my son, not my son' in spite of himself he was wondering what the stranger that had been addressed as Harry, his Harry, was hiding under that hood.

After only a few moments spent in heavy silence the fireplace roared to life filling itself to the fullest extent with bright green flames. Out of the flames came slightly nervous red head, Lily Potter.

Immediately she started forward embraced Albus in a hug and began apologising for her awful behaviour. 

Noticing that they were not alone she took a step back and decided a break from apologising was in order in favour of finding out exactly what was going on.

The office she noticed had barely changed since the last time she had been here eighteen years ago, a few new knickknacks here and there but primarily unchanged. Save for the large amount of Ministry Officials, all law enforcement in some capacity, her husband, a young lady in pretty blue dress robes who was eyeing her with wonder and a hooded, she assumed stranger whom she felt strangely drawn to. 

"Now that we are all here we can get into the explanations." Albus said as he motioned Lily into a chair near James, once again conjured from thin air.

"Now I am sure you are all wondering exactly who our two guests here are but I am afraid we are going to have to leave the introductions until after I have explained the situation."

"Now these two young people here have its seems stumbled upon some unusual phenomenon and travelled here from another world, or if you prefer a different dimension, I ask that you do not panic or over react when I introduce them all will be explained in time." Albus said his piece unaware that Harry's identity had already been revealed before he had entered the room; the only one who would be unaware of the name of the hooded fighter would be Lily Potter.

"Now would you like to introduce yourselves or shall I?" Albus asked, "Perhaps first we should go around the room starting with me and moving around the room leaving our new friends till last?" Albus asked before continuing not waiting for an answer, bloody Albus and his bloody games. "Well I shall begin I am Albus Dumbledore Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry amongst other things next please."

"Lily Potter" Lily said simply she really wanted to get into the guts of this not waste time on silly introductions, she already knew most of the people here and their names weren't really relevant to the discussion about to take place. But this was Albus Dumbledore it was faster just to humour him.    

"James Potter, Minister of Magic, Order of Merlin Second Class." His voice was slightly choked he knew what was coming and at the moment he was unsure how he felt about it.

"Gavin Oldfeild, Unspeakable, Department of Mysteries." Unknown, though presumably the one in charge, also the guy Harry caught so easily earlier.

"Angelina Johnston, Auror, Department of Magical Law Enforcement." That was an interesting one, he never would have suspected Angelina to go into Auror Training sans Dark Lord.

"Leanne DeBrook, Unspeakable, Department of Mysteries." Well what more could be said, she was an Unspeakable, not that Harry and Hermione did not know what Unspeakables did, they did. But they were extremely secretive about their member, unsurprisingly and they had never met this one before.

 "Thomas Parkinson, Unspeakable, Department of Mysteries." Harry and Hermione took note of him, he was a known Death Eater in their world and it didn't hurt to take precautions.

"Joshua Armstrong, Auror, Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Unknown.

"Elizabeth Bailey, Auror, Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Reasonable Ability, nothing special suited to routine work.

"Peter Singleton, Auror, Department of Magical Law Enforcement." Brilliant Auror, last person in command of the Auror's before the Ministries collapse Peter was probably the only reason the Auror's in their world had managed to stay together as a body following the Ministry's collapse.
    
    "Hermione Granger, Order of Merlin First Class, Head Tactical Officer, Chatelaine of Chateau Dobraine, Former General of the Debrisan Forces" A lot briefer than she could have gone but sufficient none the less. No one seemed to have a problem with her being one of the people coming over from another universe; they almost seemed to have expected it, though they did gawk at her a little. She wondered why. Then again she didn't realise, Hermione Granger, former top student, most successful graduate in a long long time of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, former Gryffindor, looked and acted distinctly different to herself. Sure she was startlingly similar to their Hermione Granger though not immediately noticeable, she held herself with a confidence that their Hermione had never exhibited.

"Harry Potter, Order of Merlin First Class, Lord Protector of England, Lord Protector of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, General of the Allied Forces, Head Phoenix of the Order of the Phoenix, Overseer and Chief Officer of the Underground, Administrator of Hogwarts, and War Mage." It was not a full listing of his various occupations but it was close enough. He swept back his hood and immediately found himself bombarded with the slight form of Lily Potter who seemed to be drinking in his form and totally disregarded everything he had just said save the Harry Potter part. She looked extremely happy yet not quite ready to believe what she could see.

As soon as she had heard Harry Potter in conjunction with the features his lowered hood showed Lily rushed over to him, it was hard to believe, yes, but there was a chance. And a chance was good enough for now.

Brushing aside his fringe she exposed it, a secret they had kept for years. The scar. It was there this really was her little boy, never mind that he came from another universe this was Harry, her Harry.


	3. 3 Life Stories

Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 3

A multitude of emotions flooded James as he spotted that scar. Disbelief an emotion not so far of his previous emotion was present of course but was quickly being beaten down by emotions so long unfelt they felt new to him. Hope, and longing. Feelings he had closed off mere months after the death of his son eighteen years ago. The void that Harry left in their lives, all their lives was aching to be filled. And the scar, the scar was proof or as close to proof as they were going to get at the moment that Harry was who he said he was.

He would never forget that mark, the cut that had marred the otherwise angelic peaceful face of his dead son, who he had held lifeless in his arms, broken. His son never had the opportunity for the cut to scar, for his son had died, died because that was where he was hit with the Killing Curse.

The same mark both condemned and marked him as an impersonator, though granted an impersonator with a very good contact. Surely the mark would have faded with age? Surely this other Harry had not survived where his son had not? Only three people had known about the existence of the mark, it had been hidden by a glamour charm before the arrival of the authorities so as not to set him apart anymore than was necessary. Two of those people were in this room, himself and Lily and neither of them, he knew had told. The subject of their dead son was approached with extreme caution or not at all and then only by their closest friends. There were only two other possibilities, Sirius had told which he could not believe or that this Alternate Harry, this other version of his son was real. Just because it was extremely unlikely to be the former did not mean that he would leave it at that, James did not like to leave any stones unturned, he had learned his lesson on that account.

Was it possible, could this be his son, albeit from another dimension? He was not sure, and if he were to really really believe he would have to be sure. But this boy, who claimed to be their son, his and Lily's from another dimension, was not convincing him at the moment. He didn't even bother act as if he knew them, just another clown trying to make him name him the Potter heir, though a damn convincing one at that, he decided.

James tried to pacify himself; he would not be able to catch the impostor when he slipped if he didn't keep his temper in check. But damn-it this boy was not only hurting him, but he was hurting Lily as well. Well if he had learned anything in his stint as Minister it was how to wait patiently for an opening, an opponents mistake and how to pounce on it when it surfaced.

  
He pacified himself, this one would be harder than the others, this one was smart, however no matter how he fought it his mind kept wandering back to the scar and he could not stop wondering how the impostor had known about it, no one knew about it. That is except for Sirius and Lily and they wouldn't tell a soul, they had not even told Remus even though they trusted him with their lives, at least they did now he amended. But just to make sure, to be sure that Sirius had not let slip to anyone as soon as he had the chance he would write to Sirius, just to be sure.

_It was surprising the number of impostors they had gotten over the years, but none had been as convincing as this one, if he was an impostor, even he had his flaws._

_He didn't know why they, the impostors, had to prey on his family, there were hundreds of rich families out there that had lost family during the war, but they had got hardly a stir from the vicious gold diggers that came in droves after his fortune. For his son's fame as well he supposed. Yes this was just another impostor; it was too much to hope for anything else._

_His son was dead, no one could change that, he had seen his lifeless body with his own eyes and though his son HAD taken the Dark Lord down with him, no one came back from the dead, it just didn't happen. Just like people didn't come from Alternate Dimensions._

Unflappable as always Albus continued in his showman's way pretending as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, pretending not to notice the room's reactions at all even as he was categorising every emotion and gesture of those he was watching. Circumspectly of course.

"Now that we have the introductions out of the way I was wondering if you two could please tell us a bit about yourselves and of course your world." Albus sprouted out excitedly, somehow managing to pull the look and sound of a kid in a candy store, which due to his age should have been impossible. Although he did spend a lot of time in Candy stores when he could, perhaps he learned to imitate them? It was either that or he had never truly grown up, which was of course, entirely possible.

Hermione and Harry exchanged glances, they were not comfortable with this situation being uprooted from one world and dumped into another was not really in the day-plan. However they were both sure that whatever the situation discussing the past would not be a pleasant topic. For either of them. Too many scars lay in their past, both physical and emotional, and far too many regrets. The fact remained however that they really had no choice in the matter, neither of them were stupid, they were stuck in this world at least until they found a way back, if they wanted to go back, but either way they would have to stay in this world for at least an extended period of time, they were going to need people they could trust, people that could trust them.  And it was painfully obvious that Harry needed Lily and James to trust him, maybe not to the world but she knew Harry, and she knew that he needed them even if they did not need him. They had to move on sooner or later, they were going to have to relive their horrible blood filled pasts, they were going to need to relate their war and they were going to have to do this in hopes that they would be accepted, accepted into a world they did not belong to, but hopefully one day would. She didn't kid herself she knew it was a very remote possibility that they would go back to their own world, not only would the procedure be incredibly complex but she was fairly sure that she did not want to go back, and she was very near positive that Harry would feel the same, judging from the look on his face. They now had something that they had been lacking for years, though it was not until just now that she noticed it, they now had hope, hope for a future. And if they had to relive the worst years of their lives to ensure themselves a place in this community than so be it. That did not mean that they had to be happy about it.

It was fairly obvious that this world was at peace. The 'guards' clumsy entrance had pretty much proved that, not to mention the open Floo gate, something they would have never had risked at home even if they knew someone was coming at a prearranged time it was just too dangerous. Peace was something that they had lacked for what seemed the larger portion of their life and even the peace they had experienced was only really half-hearted poisoned by corruption.

But could they do it? Were they really ready to relive the deaths of basically everyone close to them, people who had done nothing wrong other than be their friends, put their trust in them? It was worse for Harry she knew, at least she wasn't the cause of mass recruitments, a figurehead, a main target and a source of other people becoming targets just for coming into contact with him, She was not the Leader of the Light Side, she had not like him been showered in titles and hit with all the hard decisions that needed to be made. Sure she had done her fair share, more than her fair share, but no one had done more than Harry.  
  


"I'm not sure that's such a good idea…" said Hermione tears welling up in her eyes as scenes of horror and destruction flew through her head "I'm not sure that we're ready to relive it." 

  
"I agree with 'Mione, I'd really prefer we didn't talk about it, at all" Harry said his complexion considerably paler, his voice shaky at best. Confirming suspicions that whatever had happened in their world that these two were involved if not close to the action, which they found hard to believe, they were so young, and yet both held themselves as those who had fought in and see the worst and looked as though they had bourn the burden for years. Lily had felt Harry's body stiffen the moment the subject had been broached, she wished for his sake no matter how curious she really was that he would not have to relive his past. But she knew that was next to impossible not with James as sceptical as he was, what had happened in their world and their involvement in it would need to be explained to the Ministry if they hoped to live here, if they hoped to live in the wizarding world in any case. The public would of course want to know. And they needed to know, she needed to know, James needed to know, the Ministry needed to know exactly how much they could trust them. The public would not just accept the pair's story if they wouldn't tell of their world, what they had been through, how they had came to be here, no one could really trust them with the possibilities of their former world behind them, the possibilities of what they had been in their former world really, forever branded possible DARK WIZARD. They had to tell, or be under surveillance for the rest of their lives by the ministry, as they likely would be anyway…

Harry she was sure, would love all the attention, newspapers, WWN, everyone would want to know about the pair of dimension travellers, it wasn't something that happened everyday after all, and it would be a welcome change from all the pointless blather and gossip that the Daily Prophet printed day after day. After all Harry took after James and James had always loved being the centre of attention. After their Harry's death it was one of the few things central to James character that remained somewhat in tact, having one of your best friends betray you does change you a lot.  
  


"I'm afraid it is necessary." James said harshly, earning himself a piercing glare from Lily who could feel the affect James aversion was having on Harry.

Lily could see she was likely facing an uphill battle with this, with Harry, with James with making James believe Harry. "Please Harry tell us." She practically begged, she knew he had to do this, if they didn't than James would likely dose them with Veritaserum or throw them in Azkaban. He was still hesitant, the stiffness had not left him but it had lessened a little.

"After all, we will have to tell the press something." James added reluctantly, in an effort to offset his wife's anger, voice softer with a small forced smile. No doubt if he was really James son or even an impostor he would love the attention, not that he intended this to reach the press, if he had his way this would be over before he left this room today.

Surprisingly this had the exact opposite effect than the one they had been expecting, instead of making Harry open up he instead seemed even more hesitant than before. Not that he was outwardly showing it of course, the only reason Lily could tell was because she could feel his bodies reactions, the involuntary tensing of his muscles. He was his own person then, she should have expected that, just because they looked alike did not mean that they thought alike. Though she had to wonder why anyone who had grown up with James would dislike the Press as much as Harry obviously did, amazingly his dislike even showed on his face, everyone in the room was made aware that Harry did not like the Press. Harry's carefully guarded emotions just seemed to spill out from beneath their barriers then and a look of pure horror dawned on his face, a quick glance at Hermione showed she sympathized with Harry, but was also on the verge of laughing at him. She certainly was a strange one. Very confusing at the very least and near impossible to read and as a politician's wife she knew how to read people, one moment she would have a readable emotion on her face and the next she would have the polar opposite. Little did she know that that was what Hermione was aiming for, how she had been trained to act, that and she was enjoying not having to live up to her serious reputation. During the time she was in school she had enjoyed being the studious, stern respectable one but she had still been a kid at heart and she over the past few years had not had a chance to express that, just her serious side and she was happy to exploit this time and use it just to have some fun, it didn't help that Harry's behaviour was just hilarious! It was just much too enjoyable to have fun at Harry's expense.

"We…Ah I mean we really don't have to tell the press do we?" he said trying to keep his voice steady and failing miserably as he seriously lost his composure in the end he only succeeded in sound like he was begging. Most of the colour had drained from his face and his façade of calm, tranquillity and blessed blankness had dropped. When actually faced with the Press he could now put up a pretty good performance, that didn't mean that he had lost his fear and wariness of them though. It just proved that he was a very good actor.

Hermione couldn't help it she burst out laughing. Control be damned this was just too funny not to laugh at, one of the most hated aspect's of Harry's life would follow him around no matter where he was, it wouldn't even stop following him in another dimension. He could not escape it; it was just his destiny to be hounded by the press. Continuing this line of thought she idly wonder whether there were journalists in Heaven? Oh she hoped so, it would be hilarious to watch, Harry would probably demand to be sent to Hell.

Wiping the tears from her eyes she turned to face her punishment, the accusing glare of Harry, was she ever glad she knew he would never, if she did not have that assurance she was sure she would be running for her life right about now.  
  
"Sorry Harry" she said in the most sincere voice she could muster, not very sincere, whilst trying desperately to keep her face straight, and yet again not really succeeding. She couldn't help it, she giggled again, "Aww come on Harry it won't be that bad, So long as we make them promise to leave out the details…" she had started out talking in a baby voice causing him to glare even harder at her, but in the end she had to be at least a little serious, there was no way they could let the full story out.

"May I ask Ms. Granger what exactly you found so amusing" Dumbledore asked, pleased twinkle in his eyes, this pair were very cute, he especially liked the way Harry glared at her like he would love to kill her but knew he couldn't hurt a hair on her head at the same time, a very complex facial expression. He was near sure the pair were a couple, though obviously not yet married, not that it made much difference these days.  
  
Hermione giggled again she couldn't help it, it was too funny. "It seems Harry is doomed to a life in the lime light" she explained vaguely, trying and not really succeeding to pull herself back together, poor poor Harry, NOT.

"Seeing as Harry is so reluctant to tell his tale, I shall do it for him. Seeing as I was there for most of it and told at various stages the rest of it, it should not be too much of a problem. However…" she said shooting a glance at Harry that no one but they could decipher, she continued after he slightly inclined his head "We are going to have to insist that for the time being that this does not go beyond this room, and we would appreciate it if precautions were taken to this affect, we would like to have a Blood Spell put in place." She finished looking grim; it was asking a lot of them fifteen minutes maybe not even that after meeting them to take part in a Blood Spell. Not only were they dangerous but whatever was said under a Blood Spell stayed under a Blood Spell even if they confessed to being mass-murderers in disguise under the Blood Spell they would not be able to arrest or use the information against them, they would not even be able to talk about the information gained accept under the terms instigated during the contracts making.

There were of course ways to remove yourself from a Blood Spell but such procedures were lengthy, painful, extremely difficult and unpredictable at best. Not to mention next to no one knew about them 

"I think it would be safest and best for all of us here if Albus drew up the Spell." Hermione said after a moments thought, The Ministry people and probably James would not trust in the details of the contract if either she or Harry drew it they would expect foul play. And everybody trusted Albus Dumbledore. It surprised both Harry and Hermione therefore when James mounted a protest, though nobody else was.

"No, I think it would be best for Mr Oldfeild to draw the Spell." James countered, glaring angrily at Albus.

"One of the Unspeakables?" asked Hermione clearly sceptical.

James nodded.

"I really don't think that it is a good idea to trust a Ministry employee with something like this, they have a nasty habit of betraying people." Said Harry speaking up from his silence "No offence or anything, that's just been my experience. I would suggest Lily but I don't think she has the power to pull off the Spell without injuring herself."

James was clearly expecting Lily to protest this, she had cast Blood Spells before but she just sat there silently and didn't say a word. Very odd, very un-Lily-like.  

Sighing James resigned himself to Albus casting the spell; he closed his eyes and nodded.

Albus set about waving his wand in a complex manner over a piece of parchment, which began to glow a faint golden colour. Both Harry and Hermione were capable of creating a blood spell similar to this one, Harry could create a more powerful one even, but both doubted that those in the room would trust them enough to bind themselves to the contract, it was possible after all to silently add clauses as you created the contract, clauses that would not show up on the contract itself.

"For anyone unfamiliar with Blood Spells I will give you a brief explanation, a Blood Spell binds a person to an oath through a persons blood, in this particular case it will bind you to secrecy. Nothing that is said in this room during the set amount of time can be repeated outside this room until all parties of the Blood Spell are in agreement that it can. Should you attempt to break this oath you will cause yourself a great deal of pain, even greater than the Unforgivables but ten times more painful and essentially you will send yourself insane, in this blood spell I have also wound in a second function which will compel those in discussion Harry and Hermione to tell the truth similar effects will be incurred if they break this oath to activate the Blood Spell everyone here must shed a drop of their blood onto this parchment and repeat this oath." He finished holding up another piece of parchment that he had been scribbling on as he talked.

Everyone seemed a little reluctant to begin so Harry being Harry stood up and walked forward towards the desk, taking out one of his daggers he sliced it across his palm calmly, he was quite accustomed to Blood Spells and Blood Spilling and knew that the strength of the spell depended on the blood given gave a great deal more than entirely necessary and repeated the oath.

Turning Hermione had come up behind him with a solemn expression on her face knowing that a Blood Spell was not a good time to be laughing, the consequences were far to serious if the Blood Spell was faulty or had not been cast correctly. Hermione following Harry's lead slice the dagger he passed her across the palm of her hand, which was marred from previous Blood Spells, dark red blood flowed down her palm and onto the parchment as she watched with disinterest and was sucked into an invisible black hole in the parchment with a small flash of silver light.

One by one they all came forward and dripped their blood onto the parchment, only dropping tiny amounts of blood from their fingertips onto the parchment, one or two of them then sucking on their fingers to ease the pain, Harry just left the blood to flow from his palm while it slowly mended itself wandlessly and Hermione borrowed a handkerchief from Albus and wrapped it around her palm, Albus was the last to go and he like Harry and Hermione slashed the dagger across the palm of his hand, muttering the oath before bringing his wand out and bandaging the hand, saving the wound to deal with later, tossing the dagger a beautiful silver with emeralds embedded in its hilt back to Harry where it was deftly caught and placed back in his gauntlets blood remaining and all sat in silence waiting for someone to begin. It was eventually Hermione who snapped and brought an end to the silence.

  
"OK then if no one else is going to say anything I may as well, I'll tell Harry's story, then he can tell mine, no doubt he'll be wanting revenge on me for telling his story," she said with a devilish grin in Harry's direction "You might want to sit down James," she added looking in James direction where he had been standing looking sceptical for since Lily had rushed over to Harry. "This might take a while." Reluctantly James took his seat moving it so he could get a better view of Harry, Lily and Hermione.

  
"Well this story will start on the July 31st 1981, Halloween, the day the whole mess came to a head for the first time, the first time Harry faced Voldemort and lived." she said sombrely she had decided to tell it like it was with a little bit of flair to sufficiently embarrass Harry and hopefully bring him a bit further out of his shell, his father was not likely to accept him the way he was acting at the moment and she did not fancy being tracked and watched by the Ministry of Magic for the rest of her life. It was such a pity Albus hadn't the foresight to chuck a history book into the bargain, then they would not have to explain and just sit them in a corner and tell them to read, it would certainly be a lot easier than this was going to be.

  
"The Potters had recently been put under the Fidelis Charm with Peter Pettigrew as their secret keeper," she could see she had already scored a hit on the changes in the timeline chart. "The general community was under the understanding that Sirius Black was secret keeper and this view was encouraged, Sirius knew the Dark Lord would believe that he was secret keeper and come after him so he convinced Lily and James to change secret keepers to Peter without telling anyone. This was because he suspected Remus, after all no one suspects the rat until its too late"  
  


  
Hermione took a deep breath, she could tell from the looks on Lily and James faces that the secret keepers had not happened in this dimension, but that Peter was still the traitor.

  
"Peter was a spy for Voldemort and not long after he had been made secret keeper Peter gave away the Potters location to the Dark Lord," she noticed with a sigh that no matter where you were there would always be those who would flinch at the Snake-man's name, it made her a little mad that she would never be able to stop this completely, it was such a foolish behaviourism she had discovered and anyway think of all that extra time you waste in an attack saying You-Know-Who instead of Voldemort, ' attack its You-Know-Who' what actually surprised her was that she had actually heard that once or twice, totally ridiculous in her opinion.  
  


  
"Voldemort attacked the Potters on Halloween first killing James," here she looked at James with a sombre expression, even though until he had seen the scar he thought this was another hoax and after that he had still been extremely sceptical he was caught up in the tale and it shocked him slightly to find out he was dead in the other dimension, it made him kind of sad that if he believed in this that he still would not have been given the opportunity to get to know his son. "Who was trying to hold him off while Lily got herself and Harry out." She paused she didn't really want to tell them they were both dead but she didn't have much choice, not to mention once they found out about the Boy-Who-Lived it was going to take a while before she could continue, she sighed, why did I volunteer to tell Harry's story anyway? She asked herself. By now everyone minus Harry and Hermione were on the edge of their seats wondering what would happen next, like some sick soap opera except to them it had really happened.  
  


  
"Lily was still in the upstairs bedroom when he came in, she begged him to take her instead, to spare Harry, he told her to step aside so he could kill Harry, but she wouldn't so he killed her." She took another deep breath "He moved on to Harry and sent the Killing Curse to him, but something went wrong and the curse bounced back and destroyed Voldemort instead, leaving Harry with the lightning shaped scar on his forehead, thus earning the title The-Boy-Who-Lived. 

Finally one of the younger Aurors Angelina who had been on his house Quidditch team voiced the question on everyone's minds. "Harry how did you survive the Killing Curse" everyone except Hermione was on the edge of their seats, this knowledge he should possess could save millions of lives, people need not live in fear of a single curse from the moment they learned of its existence, was it possible to escape the Killing Curse? From what Herm had just said, it was possible and if it was possible than he must know how, right, right!

"Many theories have been put forward as to why Harry survived the Killing Curse the most prominent being that his mothers love saved him, this however has its flaws and after much discussion it was decided that it was more likely that it had more to do with Harry himself than anyone else, although his mothers sacrifice certainly helped." She paused because she had already lost everyone's attention; they were all looking at Harry who had a single tear streaking down his face, no doubt reliving his parent's deaths.  
  


Harry snapped out of his reverie to find nearly everyone staring at his scar, he cursed the familiarity of it, everyone always has to stare at the scar. He was thankful however to find that three were just staring at HIM, those being Lily, James and Albus, Hermione was just looking concerned he noticed a slight dampness on his cheek, which Lily quickly wiped away for him, he smiled gratefully, building back up his emotionless walls he should not be this emotional, it was dangerous, and he certainly wasn't safe just because he was in a room or world where people had not been at war did not mean he was safe, he was Harry Potter not even Hogwarts was safe for him.  
  
"If I told you it wouldn't help you." He stated simply "No one but me has the power to pull it off." He wasn't gloating they could tell that, they could feel the power radiating off him, and they knew he wasn't giving up the secret, they looked a little disappointed but they had never really expected him to be able to tell them anyway.  
  
"Alas that is disappointing, Miss Granger could you please continue" Albus said turning his gaze back at Hermione.  
  
"OK after Voldemort disappeared, Hagrid came to pick Harry up to take him to Dumbledore, Sirius who had gone to check on Peter and found him gone turned up and asked Hagrid to give Harry to him as he was his godfather" at this Lily and James nodded happy that even if they had died Harry would grow up with Sirius. "But Hagrid said no, he had orders from Albus and you know how he gets when Albus gives him orders." She said with a smile.

"Hagrid delivered Harry to the Dursley's where Dumbledore put him under their care, and Harry lived there until it was time for him to go to Hogwarts" a shriek of outrage could be heard from Lily and to a lesser extent James, how could their son be brought up by those barbarians!  
  
James voice could be heard over the chattering that had broken out, "Why couldn't he live with Sirius?" he asked calmly as if dreading the answer.  
  
Hermione sighed, she seemed to be doing a lot of that, "Sirius was in Azkaban for the murder of Peter Pettigrew and a dozen muggles that got in the way" with Sirius's temper they could imagine the murder of Peter, the traitor but a dozen muggles, not that can't be right!  
  
"He was of course innocent" she said quickly seeing looks of disbelief on everyone's faces especially those who obviously knew the Sirius of this world. "Pettigrew framed him"  
  
"Anyway, Harry lived with the Dursley's until he went to Hogwarts, and err well Hagrid had to use a little bit of 'magic' to get the Dursley's to let Harry come" Hermione smiled slightly at the thought of Dudley with a tail, it was quite a shame Hagrid had not completed his education, Dudley as a pig was quite an appealing thought…

Harry snorted obviously thinking along the same lines as her…

"Anyway on with the story, after a little persuasion Harry was allowed to go with Hagrid, and come to Hogwarts," Hermione sighed, time to get into the heavy stuff "OK then first year, well it started off with the sorting, Harry, myself and Ron were sorted into Gryffindor, Draco Malfoy was sorted into Slytherin and henceforth became our 'enemy'… Hows about I make this brief, first year involved Sorting, were both Gryffindor's, A troll, Harry getting on the Quidditch team, suspecting Snape, smuggling dragons OUT of the school, an evil DADA teacher with Voldemort possessing him, Three Headed Dogs, Devils Snares, The Mirror of Erised, Flying Keys, a Giant Game of Chess, Logic Problems that could result in getting poisoned and Harry in the Hospital Wing, not to mention a failed attempt for Voldie-Moldie to get back to life…" phew she let out her breath that took a lot to get out…

Harry snorted, "Not to mention that famous little line, "You could get killed, or worse EXPELLED!"

Hermione turned red and hid her head in her hands… she was never going to live that one down…

Taking a deep breath she continued "In Our second year Ron and his brothers Fred and George rescued Harry from the Dursley's in their fathers flying Ford Angelina and Harry spent the rest of his holidays at the Burrow, Lucius Malfoy planted an enchanted diary in Ginny Weasley's school supplies which caused her to be possessed by Voldemort open the chamber of Secrets and petrify a number of students, muggleborns, including myself Harry was accused of being the heir of Slytherin after we discovered at a duelling club that he could speak parseltongue, we attended a Death day party, Harry killed a Basilisk and faced off with a sixteen year old Tom Riddle, Harry freed the Malfoy's house elf Dobby who had repeatedly tried to 'save' his life throughout the year by nearly killing him and that's about all that happened in second year, oh yeah Lockhart lost his memory after one of his own memory charms backfired on him…"

"Anyway third year was pretty interesting Harry lost his temper at his Aunt Marge and blew her up like a balloon, ran away from the Dursley's and was pardoned by the Minister of Magic himself, Cornelius Fudge," she sneered his name and it was very obvious that she severely disliked the man, snapping out of her Fudge hating reverie Hermione continued wishing that the story of Harry's life was just that little bit simpler, she knew she was leaving out some major stuff but it was hard trying to remember all this in sequential order, "He spent the rest of his holidays at the Leaky Cauldron with some restrictions and found out the morning he we were going to the Hogwarts Express that the 'murderous convict' who had just escaped Azkaban wanted to kill him. Anyway on the way to school the train was stopped by Dementor's, Harry fainted as soon as they entered our cabin. Turned out that Harry didn't react well to Dementor's…" Hermione stated followed by a quick muttering of "understatement" from Harry.

"Anyway the Dementor's were there to guard the school from the evil escaped convict Sirius Black, Remus Lupin was our Defence Against the Dark Arts Teacher, in the top two best we ever had, certainly the one with less baggage even being a werewolf is better than the rest, anyway Harry learnt the Patronus Charm, Sirius broke into the school, Sirius gave Harry a Firebolt and I got it confiscated by McGonagall which made Harry and Ron stop talking to me for a little while, Malfoy tried to get Hagrid fired and Buckbeak executed and nearly succeeded, Goyle was bitten by a flobberworm, we found out that Sirius was innocent and that Peter Pettigrew who had been posing as a pet rat, Ron's pet rat was actually responsible for the deaths of Harry's parents, we managed to knock out Snape with a series of overzealous disarming charms (a fond smile) Peter got away when we got outside and Remus turned into a werewolf, Sirius was caught by the ministry and using a time turner Harry and myself were able to save Buckbeak from execution and rescue Sirius from the Dementor's Kiss, Snape announced to the school that Lupin was a werewolf and Lupin resigned."

"Fourth year saw the Triwizard Tournament and Voldemort coming back to life, Harry was chosen as a fourth champion because Barty Crouch Jnr. Confounded the Goblet of Fire into thinking there were four schools instead of three and entered Harry as the only member of that school, as it was magically binding Harry was forced to compete. The first task was the retrieve a Golden Egg from beneath a live dragon, which he managed quite successfully, the second task was to figure out a clue which led to retrieving a friend or family member from beneath the lake and the merpeople, which Harry procrastinated about and only succeeded with the help of an eavesdropping house elf, the third task was a maze which ended up with a wounded Harry and Cedric Diggory deciding to take the cup together, a Hogwarts victory, unfortunately the cup was a portkey and took them both straight to Pettigrew and a very weak Voldemort Cedric was killed on sight and Harry's blood was used in an ancient ritual that caused the Dark Lord to get his body back, Harry and Voldemort duelled and the reverse spell effect occurred because Harry and Voldemort's wands share cores, Harry escaped back to the school bringing Cedric's body with him and found out the Mad-Eye Moody was really Barty Crouch Jnr a Death Eater who had been teaching us all year under poly-juice potion. 

"At the start of fifth year Harry was called to Albus's office and given the choice, the choice between a relatively normal life in which he would probably be dead before the end of his education at best or participation in the Asialia Accedes training program, the Mage program in which he would either Live and be incredibly powerful or die. It wasn't really pleasant but it was necessary."

  
"Harry excelled in the program, especially the fighting aspects and became the first full-fledged War Mage in two thousand years. After the completion of the program Harry began his campaign on the Dark Lord and earned all those pretty little titles and leadership positions, it soon became apparent that we were going to have to tell the muggles about magic if we were going to have any hope of winning this war as they were the main targets, well main in numbers anyway, by combining muggle military and magical means we were able to create some of the most destructive weapons in the universe."


	4. 4 Welcome to a New World

**Mage**

**By Cataclysmic**

**Chapter 4**  
**Welcome to a New World.**

Surprisingly it took a lot longer than she thought it would to tell Harry's story, or at least tell it to a degree satisfactory to her listeners. Long after she had finished the story, well as far as the beginning of fifth year anyway, the questions were still flying and they were in no way closer to being dismissed for the night.

Of all the things they could have imagined they would be doing after they finally achieved the miracle of defeating Voldemort sitting in a stuffy old office explaining their life stories was not among them.

By this time Hermione was getting more and more omissive and huge yawns were not uncommon sights. After Hermione completed the extremely short version of Harry' life after fifth year it was getting late and, deciding that enough was enough Harry called a stop to what was largely an embarrassing rehash of his life. Neither he not Hermione had eaten anything substantial in about twenty-four hours with the only sustenance they managed to take in being Albus's very filling biscuits, lemon drops and mint tea. Although nice they were _not_ a good substitute for real food. No one else though it seemed, excepting maybe Hermione shared his views in regards to eating, instead rapped up in the story of his and to a degree Hermione's lives. It was now past eleven thirty at night and none of _them_ looked ready to call it a night anytime soon.

Enough was enough.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hermione had finished his tale up until fifth year and it was getting late, neither Harry or Hermione had yet eaten and Hermione had decided that enough was enough, it was time to leave the story for another day, although Harry's life until fifteen had been somewhat abbreviated and to the point it had still taken a long time to get even the bare facts out, she had carefully left out details that some people may not be aware of like Remus being a werewolf, although they probably knew that and the Marauders being animagus and of course the Marauders Map.  
  
She could tell James was curious to know whether or not they knew these details but she just could not let them out safely without alerting the rest of the room of the presence of the secrets.  
  
"Do you mind if we leave it there for tonight?" she asked Albus "And could we possibly stay in the castle until we sort things out?" personally she had no idea what they were going to do to sort things out but she was nearly positive that the old professor would let them stay in the castle until they had somewhere else to go. Albus and the rest looked more than a little disappointed. Well too bad she was getting way too tired for this, she thought, punctuating this with yet another yawn, they just kept getting more frequent.  
  
"Of course, of course I will show you to some rooms and I am assuming that you would like to stay also?" he asked gesturing at the 'guards' and Lily and James when he was met with slightly tired nods he stood up to lead them to the guest quarters within the castle. They had not been used or needed in a long time and had previously been teachers rooms in times gone by when extra teachers had been needed and guests, visitors and refugees were more common, most of these were filled with the influx of students they had had following the reign of Voldemort but they still had plenty of left over rooms to suit their purposes for the night.  
  
Albus led them down a passageway towards the main teacher's corridor but turned aside into a barely visible passage just before they got there and ducked under a tapestry that had previously hidden the entrance to this new corridor or rather Hall.  
  
The Hall was a bright silver colour with golden architraves, portraits lined the walls and one had to wonder why the regular teacher had chosen the regular corridor when this one was available, although the other rooms had the benefits of having more than one entrance, one of which led directly to their classrooms, little did they know that you could actually spell these rooms to have the same effects.  
  
Harry and Hermione had been here before this had been where their permanent rooms had been in their world.  
  
Albus gestured vaguely at the hall, "you may pick your own rooms and choose your own passwords the rooms are currently empty and will accept any password you choose, Goodnight and I will be expecting you all at breakfast in the morning." He said with a smile, everyone smiled back as he made his way to the other end of the corridor that appeared to be a dead end until he walked straight through the wall and disappeared.  
  
Even James had smiled, which was a little odd considering the amount of hostility between the two in recent years.  
  
Harry and Hermione made their way to a portrait on the right side of the room, where a portrait of a brilliant silver and white phoenix with a sky blue backdrop lay.  
  
"Same password?" Harry asked as everyone made their way to their own rooms to tired for idle conversation or to notice the pair entering their room, or to bid them goodnight, or to notice they were entering their room TOGETHER.  
  
They entered their room and not surprisingly found it exactly as it had been when they had first moved in, in the other world. It was a little refreshing to find that the room was not filled with war strategies or books on the dark arts; the absence of bloodstains on the carpet was definitely a plus.  
  
Another plus of the room was the closets, every room in this corridor had a special feature and this particular room allowed you to find whatever clothing you wished to wear, subconsciously of course (for the picky people) so you would always be wearing the most perfect clothing for what you were going to be doing that day, or in their case sleeping. This was a great advantage considering the fact that apart from Harry's battle robes and a few objects he had spelled to remain with him no matter what they had none of their belongings with them.  
  
Changing quickly the two crawled under the silver and red bedspread and instantly found themselves in the realm of dreams, unusually the two found themselves in the same dream, a dream of the man who had given them this chance in the first place, a dream of Albus Dumbledore the man who had died in battle and selflessly shortened his time in the realm of the living to give Harry a chance at a normal life.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Silver mist enveloped him as soon as his eyes were closed, no not mist that wasn't quite right. It was dust.

He could feel the dust settling on his skin and building up on his eyelashes, silently he wished that the dust would go away… he needed to see! Surprisingly the swirling dust seemed to answer his wish as it fell to the floor. For a moment everything was bright and blinding, then his eyes adjusted and he could see two figures moving towards him, instinctively he knew the figures were not a danger, that they would not hurt him. So he waited.

Sure enough as the figures were getting closer and now that the dust had receded it was becoming easier to see, a quick check of his surroundings showed that the dust, sand whatever it was, was still there no longer falling around his but swirling, swirling like a savage tornado around himself and the two other figures, as they got closer the swirly tornado of dust closed around them, seemingly bringing them together.  
  
The figures features became clearer now.  
  
It was Hermione and Albus, not the Dumbledore he had most recently seen in this dimension it was his Dumbledore, the Albus that had died in battle, had you not seen both in a short space of time you would not have noticed the differences, the added wrinkle here and there, a few more worry lines on his brow, if you had not seen them both as close up as Harry had you would not be able to tell which had led the easier life. But he could, and his Albus clearly stood out as the harder done by.  
  


Albus smiled at the pair, two of the students he had became closest to over the years, he was extremely happy that Hermione was still alive to join Harry in this other dimension, he had been hoping she would be, she deserved the chance to live a happy life as much as Harry did, and he would likely need a grounding influence over the years, someone to keep him from going over the top experiencing freedoms he never had at home.

"I imagine you are wondering what is going on here, that is if you haven't figured it out already?" Albus asked his twinkle well defined as he asked the question, they couldn't help but chuckle he never really changed, no matter where you were, this Dumbledore though had an advantage on his counter part, he already knew them. He had been by there sides or encouraging them from the sidelines for nearly their entire lives, well the parts that really mattered anyway, he probably knew a great deal more about them than they did themselves.  
  
That he was now dead and had more than likely been watching over them would have only added to his knowledge. He knew they did not know the answer; he was just teasing them for the pure fun of it.  
  
Harry smiled; he had missed Albus's roundabout little conversations, the way he liked to gloat, in his own little way, about knowledge he knew they didn't have and would likely never receive should he choose not to tell them. Although after all the effort he put into appearing omniscient it became very strange, and very funny, when you came across something he didn't know, or didn't know about.

"Why don't you enlighten us?" asked Harry lightly, too used to Albus's antics to do anything else, it was a near certainty that Albus knew more about practically anything that was going on than they did. Harry grinned at Albus they had always played this game, Albus trying to make him come up with the answer himself and Harry trying to get Albus to tell him the answer and save him the thinking, it always ended up somewhere in the middle, Harry getting half the answer and Albus telling the other half.

It was somewhat of a surprise then, a small breaking from tradition when Albus answered.

  
"Alas I am going to have to; we do not have much time here. The portal you went through has brought you to an alternate dimension, which no doubt you have already found. This dimension is as close to what you and I believe should have occurred, for example Harry's parents lived he died and Voldemort was destroyed the first time. It is what the world should or could have been like if you will. It will not be it exactly be your perfect world, there will be discrepancies from our own world, some large, some small. You must remember that nothing is ever as perfect as it appears while everything may appear good on the surface that darkness is always there waiting for complacency. People you knew before in our world, may have totally different upbringings or outlooks than you remember, you must keep an open mind, people may be different, have different personalities than you remember never take anything for a given. You must remember that they have lived in a different world, where key events that may have shaped their personalties in our own world may or may not have occurred."

"The portal you used was keyed to activate only after Voldemort's final defeat, I would like to say I was confident of you ability to defeat him, however I was not entirely confident, you only ever had a slim chance of truly defeating him, I was confident you would manage to kill him a few times but to truly defeat him took a lot more than a simple death of the body."

"In any case I was hoping that you would eventually complete your task, and so I gave you a gift, this chance to start over, as best you can. Please understand Harry that this world will be so much better for you to make a life in, you will not have every man woman and child looking up to you as an idol, I believe that you need this chance, this chance to start over, as do you Hermione you have lost many people that you have loved during this war, this is a chance to in some ways get them back. This is your chance for a new life, do with it what you will."

  
Harry and Hermione gave him small smiles, it was hard to express gratitude for something as large as this, especially for them, for years they had been trapped unable to show or express much in the way of emotions, they were glad that Albus knew that and in return did not take it personally. Then again Albus was the closest person to them, alive or dead, he was probably just really good at reading them.

"So tell me everything that has happened since I passed." Albus demanded leaning towards them his blue eyes sparkling spectacularly.

Harry and Hermione laughed, "haven't you been paying attention, I thought you would be able to watch what was going on from where you were or something?" Hermione asked

Albus pouted, "Well I have, but it's much more fun to hear it from your point of view." He pointed out and chuckled.

And so they told him of the final battle, how Harry had poured his power and a small part of his soul into the one spell that would bind Voldemort for eternity, the spell that would have the things fallen enemies guarding him for all eternity. By doing this he had sentence all those killed by the Dark Lord to become his keeper forever more, he had sentenced his parents to this fate as much as he hated to think of it, but it had been the only way, the only sure way. There were others but they would involve his death, they were the final options, when all else failed, for how would the world survive without himself taking the brunt of the Dark Lords wrath? Albus who had not fallen by Voldemort's hand, rather by his minions remained unaffected.

He tried not to think of the torment the keepers must be going though it was too much for him to bear.

Albus sensed his doubts and it took it upon himself to tell Harry what those who could not would have, that it was not his fault, he could not change the past and he had done what was best. And most of that they would understand, that those that had fallen by his hand would understand the need for what he had done. Already they had been here several hours, and the silver dust storm was closing in on them again, letting them know their time was running out.

Before leaving Albus hugged them both before stepping back to relieve them of one final burden.  
  
"Before I return to well, I am not at liberty to say were I came from," he said with an enigmatic smile, "I will relieve you of the burden of telling your story, I will plant your story, from my own point of view of course within this world's Albus's mind, just the bare details and he can inform the others, I know how much it pains you to relive your lives, especially the recent history." he said with a regretful grin truly apologetic that he could not do more for them.  
  


The dust storm was all around and he could only barely see the retreating form of his mentor, "Farewell Harry, Hermione, until we meet again." and he was gone leaving them to drift back to consciousness, consciousness in a world that promised to be better than their own, new beginnings, and one thought ran simultaneously through both their minds, Thank God we don't have to explain!  
  
Unfortunately for Harry and Hermione, there were still two people in the next room who very much did want and need an explanation. Those two people were Harry's parents who had miraculously re-gained their son only the day before after years and years of pent up guilt and frustration and misplaced anger.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Lily and James were worried; they had now both accepted that this was Harry, their Harry even if he was from another world. Or In James case had at least decided to outright doubt him before he had proof that he wasn't who he said he was. They wanted him to be their son, even James on some level, but the question remained, what did Harry want? How much more had their son gone through before returning to them? Would he want parents? Would he need parents? He seemed to but how could they be sure? And even if he did want them to be his parents, their parenting experience was limited to parental experience with baby Harry, did they even know how to be good parents? This of course would not really pose to many problems as Harry had never know anyone other than the Weasley's, Albus, Sirius and Remus who had acted in a remotely parental manner and even that was partially destroyed by the war effort, his training did not really allow for such weaknesses as family and even though he had tried to overcome that particular problem, his success had been limited and he unconsciously stayed detached from everyone with the exceptions of Sirius, Albus, Hermione and Ron, even Ron was included in his detached persona towards the end for which he felt extremely guilty.

All this wondering was really starting to stress them out and it wasn't until Albus Dumbledore poked his head in the door that they realized just how long they had been feeding on each others insecurities, well that and how hungry they were.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  


Both Harry and Hermione were in the best mood they had been in, in very a long time. It seemed like forever if ever since they had last been this happy.

It felt good to be somewhat carefree again, sure they were in a strange world were they hardly knew anybody, and all the people they had known throughout their lives wouldn't know them, but finally they no longer had to look over their shoulders worrying about Death Eaters, assassins or spies. They were still a long way from the carefree kids they once were, the being careful or paranoid as they would have called it was so ingrained by this point it would not surprise them if they were in the top ten most paranoid people on the planet and even then they would probably be near the top of the list, they might even one up Moody on a good day.

They knew their good mood would not last long though, for today they had woken with a mission. Today they would ask after friends and family, to find out who was and who wasn't alive. Somewhere in there they would have to work in a history lesson as well.

As they made their way down the hall they caught many a strange glance aimed their way. As Albus had informed them that he had informed the school of their arrival (a little premature in their opinion) they weren't quite sure what the student body found so interesting.

It wasn't until they reached the Great Hall that they figured out what the problem was… it seemed that word had travelled ahead of them.  
  
"Headmaster!" the Potions Master protested, "You cannot possibly allow that _Boy_ to carry a sword it is simply not acceptable! this is a school!" the Professor bit out in outrage, at which point he turned to continue his argument face to face with his absent boss, it had to have been one of the first times ever the Headmaster was absent for Breakfast, needless to say he turned very red much to the delight of the students who had never seen this side of their most hated Professor, watching this Harry and Hermione could not help but chuckle, some things never changed they thought with a glance towards the Slytherin table who stoutly refused to laugh at their Head of House.

Hiding smiles Harry and Hermione continued on to the Head Table pretending like they hadn't heard him, taking seats towards the end of the table next to an extremely excited Hagrid they proceeded to begin their breakfast.

Thankfully it seemed that Hagrid's love of dangerous creatures did not extend to humans, although he did complement Harry on his sword, commenting that it was one of the best swords he had seen in years. Harry however did not agree with him, the Gryffindor sword was too heavy and extravagant for him; unfortunately he had never had the time to track down one more to his liking. That and it was fitting to wear the sword of Gryffindor to the defeat of the heir of Slytherin. Swords were no longer a commonly held item in anyone's possession as far as he knew, he was likely the only person still getting around with a sword strapped to their hip, even in his world, a world torn with war where muggle weapons were now common in the wizarding world most had preferred the more modern muggle technology such as guns and grenades. He though, he had preferred the old weapons, swords and the like he had to get closer to the enemy to do the damage but they just felt right in his hands and he had a natural gift for the weapons, he seemed to automatically know what to do with them, although the sword had taken some practice that was mainly to develop the muscles needed to wield the heavy weapon.  
  


The Marauder within was very glad that he had managed to embarrass Snape with his entrance, although in his own world the two were somewhat friends, Snape was still very biased in his teaching methods and the act of embarrassing Snape helped his relations with the kids, or at least they weren't looking at him like he was Voldemort anymore, after all anyone who could embarrass Snape HAD to be good didn't they?

He could just imagine the effect on the students of his arrival had he not added some form of comic relief, they wouldn't scream or run around like chooks with their heads cut off but they would have been silent, and deadly silent, afraid that if they made a sound he would turn into some mad axe murderer who had come after them or like Voldemort with a vengeance and Harry was probably the most experienced person in any world when it came to attracting Voldemort's vengeance.  
  
Harry smiled as he nibbled on his bagel it was nice not to be stared at, well not stared at openly, sure they were still staring at him but at least they were being discreet about it, he couldn't help thinking how great it was not to be famous.

Thinking about his fame made him think of his great allies throughout the war, he should probably make contact with them at some point, the elves although they had remained hidden for centuries were surprisingly well informed as to the goings on of the wizarding world and although they would not know of him personally here or even heard of him yet they would have felt his appearance into this world, they were well in tune with the magical fields of the world and his appearance would have pulled a large amount of magical energy in towards him, Herm would have pulled more than her fair share to of magic to herself as well, to them it would probably appear to be like a sudden magical black hole sucking up energy, it was probably best that he contacted them first before they did something to restore a balance that did not really need to be restored. That or they started to panic.

So far Hermione was a little behind him, they always had worked well together shared practically everything they learned, he was the muscle in the relationship he went out to do what needed to be done and she was his backup. She was the one that found out what new things needed to be done and when he needed to do them. The elves had always been an exception to this, they could not work together on them because they would not have contact with anyone but him, and swore him to secrecy on everything he learned. That unfortunately also applied to Hermione and his training with the Elves began the first real divergence in their knowledge, he worked with the magic while she worked with what her book learning taught her. Hermione had never discovered what exactly went on when he disappeared for a few days at a time, she had asked of course but she had never received an answer and for a long time it had hampered their relationship, but she had eventually accepted that there were some things he could never tell her.  
  


It was especially difficult with the world that they lived in to disappear for a few days without being able to tell anyone where he was going or who he was going to be with, personally he didn't blame Herm for her doubts, he would have had them himself if it had been the other way around, but she had accepted it and for that he was thankful and it had only served to strengthen their relationship.  
  


What was especially strange was the way that the Elves had managed to become some of his greatest Allies in the war without ever coming into direct contact with anyone but himself. Centuries of hiding their existence and keeping an eye on both the wizarding and muggle worlds had made the Elves amazing spies and assassins, though several of the texts he had read about Elves clearly identified them as being 'pure' creatures they were still a long way from being so, though they had higher moral values than any human on the planet they had no problems with killing anyone who became a threat to them, especially Death Eaters or Dark Ones as they called them. It was the Elves mission in life to rid the world of the Dark Ones and their minions throughout the world. Centuries of hiding had given them an innate skill for hiding and disguising themselves something very useful in the war effort. And their information was practically priceless.

The Elves were fearsome warriors but their skills were never used against one another in any other form than a friendly spar, they were not especially gifted at healing themselves but their methods when transposed to humans was remarkably effective, they lived in peace and watched the human world closely for fear of discovery.  
  
It was many generations ago that the Elves had separated themselves from the humans, and none could remember the exact reason for the split, however the Elves revulsion for all things 'dark' was probably part of the cause, thus it had been somewhat of a surprise for Harry when they had encouraged him to learn the DARK Arts, but this had probably become the most important thing he had learned from them, they believed that no magic was essentially Dark it depended on which side of the cause people were fighting for what 'colour' the magic was, intentions or something like that, personally he thought their views were a little strange but he had come to accept them.   
   
Magic is neither light nor dark it is the wizard that determines the darkness of magic and as long as you use the magic for a purpose that benefits the people as a whole, not for personal gain then the magic you perform can never be truly dark.  
   
He had learned many things in his time with the Elves but one thing had always weighed on him since the time they had first contacted him, and that was WHY they had contacted him in the first place, yes he was the most powerful wizard, no mage EVER but they had never really troubled themselves about contacting any other wizards and they had assured him that the Elvin Kingdom was in no danger from the Dark Forces and yet they had troubled themselves and risked exposure to the general wizarding community to help HIM.  
   
He wasn't sure he would ever get an answer to that question but in all his visits and the most strongly magical thing he had learned from the Elves to help in his battles was the forgotten connection to magic, inner magic, magic in the air it didn't matter the Elves had taught him to feel and ultimately control ALL magic. It had somewhat shocked them when he had started controlling the magic, it was something that they had obtained like most witches and wizards in small quantities but the level on which Harry had control of surrounding magic was astounding, it just seemed to bend to his will and that is how he had ultimately destroyed Voldemort by distorting his magic to such an extent it became possible to defeat him, but it was by no means easy and although it drained him, a lot. His power was still sufficiently intact when he arrived in this world and he had no doubt that he was soaking up magic from the very air to replenish that lost in the battle, in the whole scheme of things it would not change much, as even as he was soaking it up the magic was being replenished, no one knew, not even the Elves how this happened but they did know it did, that magic could never be 'used up' that it was constantly replacing lost magic. But generally there was a balance, which living things and magic lived by, Albus's spell would not upset that balance, it was specifically designed not to, though he didn't know how Albus had known to do that, balance the ley lines of magic in both worlds so the premature loss of the two of them balanced out with this world gaining them.  
   
Snapping himself out of his thoughts he looked to the doors of the Great Hall, it was disconcerting to see them so opened and welcoming, though the first thought that came to mind when he saw them was undefended. Closing his eyes he could feel that there was no magic guarding the entrance and he had to frown at that, you could never be too careful, somewhere along the way Moody's call for CONSTANT VIGALANCE had sunk in and he found it rather foolish to have NO wards on the entrance to the most commonly used meeting place in the castle excluding the common rooms, even if there was no visible threat like a Dark Lord there was always some madman lurking around the corner ready to take the place of the previous, that or just your regular run of the mill madmen.  
  
It was irrational of them to lower their defences between Dark Lords for centuries one Dark Lord had followed another, the community coming under siege again after they lowered their defences! Yet time after time instead of strengthening defences after the fall of one Dark Lord they proceeded to neglect or remove their protection. It was madness!  
  
He sighed as he realised he had gotten sidetracked again, there was a reason he had looked to the entrance of the Great Hall and that reason was that there were people entering. Several people in fact.   
  
Professor Dumbledore led in two people he had allowed himself to forget in all this. This. What should he call this, he really had no idea he had never experienced anything like this ever before, he should feel, did feel good about his parents being alive but someone else had taken their place in his heart and he wasn't sure if he was ready to fill the gap both Sirius's and Albus's death had left with the love of the parents he had never known, and still didn't know much about he thought, why did everything have to be so difficult?  
  
He felt a little relieved when they had to sit on the other side of the teachers table, all other spaces currently being in use, after all what exactly would he talk to them about? He groaned when he realised they would want the story finished before remembering that Albus now knew enough about it that he could probably finish the story himself, Harry hoped he would, he didn't think he was really up to finishing the basic run-down of his life let alone go into detail, even the basic story he found more than slightly depressing.   
  
Harry looked over to Hagrid who was looking at him with a curious expression on his face, The Giants were another interesting Ally, they were not as brutish or barbaric as they had been portrayed throughout history they were actually a very developed culture, albeit different to any other in the world, to others their culture did seem barbaric but the Giants lifestyle was such that only the strongest could and thus DID survive. They also had a very well developed sense for people, this in the past had caused problems during the first uprising of Voldemort, having felt that the 'light' side would not understand, did not understand their beliefs they had sided with the one who could offer them freedom, freedom to live their lives as they pleased and not under the thumb of some ministry official. For all that they had known that Voldemort was dark and that he would likely betray them, but they also knew that their chance to live harmoniously with the 'light' was very slim and they had been willing to take the risk.  
  
Hagrid stared at him for a few minutes before coming though with a broad grin although it was slightly uncertain and he was sure that the half-giant would be keeping an eye on him, traces of Dark Magic would likely hang off him for a long time even if he refrained from using it, which he probably wouldn't but he was sure that he eluded enough traces of light magic that it would nearly entirely overwhelm his use of Dark Magic.  
  
Hagrid held out his hand and with a smile Harry accepted it, he already knew the man better than he was sure Hagrid thought possible but it was good to know that he would still be friends or at least on good terms with his favourite informant friend, even if he did give off information unwittingly he was still one of the most valuable friends Harry had ever, his first and rescuer from the Dursley's.  
  
"Rubeus Hagrid," he said in his familiar bustling speech, "But doub'less ya know that"   
  
"Hi Hagrid, I'm Harry and this is Hermione," Harry smiled "Would you mind telling us what Albus told the school last night, we might be able to help put the students at ease a bit." Harry said noticing several students stares directed directly at the two of them and quite a few indirectly as well, though mainly at Harry with more than a little apprehension, previous slight on Snape beginning to fade into their young under productive memories as Snape would put it.  
  
"Ah, don' ya worry bout them, they'll get used to ya" Hagrid replied, suddenly his eyes got a strange gleam in them, " Doub'less you've met some pretty interesting creatures in ya world, can ya tell me about 'em?"

His big beady black eyes shining with excitement.   
  
"Sure, I've met a few." Harry replied with a yawn.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Albus smiled at Harry and Hermione, they seemed the perfect solution to his Defence Problem, although his other self had warned him they might be a little overenthusiastic he couldn't help but feel excited, perhaps he had found THE teachers the perfect teachers to break the curse on the Defence Job.  
  
Although it had been theorized by students for generations none had actually truly believed that the curse was actually real, and not only was it for just the Dark Arts Job, however the Defence position had always been notoriously harder to fill than any other teaching position. He supposed that was probably to be expected as along with the Defence teaching position came the responsibility for defending the castle, though that was a little known fact. The Defence teacher was not only responsible for the teaching of the students but also the updating of wards and preparing plans to deal with any threat to the castle.   
  
The Curse dated back to the time of the founders, each having different ideas on HOW the subjects should be taught they had came up with the perfect image of what talents the teachers for each position should obtain, no one knew exactly what these requirements were but the closer to the specification you were, the longer you lasted, thus unsuitable teachers were dealt with either by the Headmaster or the castle itself.  
  
Hogwarts castle had in fact probably removed more teachers than the entire complement of Hogwarts Headmaster's combined, as only Hogwarts really knew the exact correct specifications for its teachers.  
  
Something about the pair screamed that they were perfect for the job, well not really something, it probably had a great deal to do with the memories his other-self had shared with him the night before.  
  
He desperately hoped they would accept the position; he had his doubts, although the other Albus seemed to think that they would not turn it down. He however although he had viewed memories forms his other self did not truly understand the pair the way their own mentor did.  
  
He would ask them after breakfast he decided, the others could wait for their explanations, right now he needed a Defence Teacher As Soon As Possible, or maybe even two? He smiled to himself, these two sure had timing.


	5. 5 New Beginnings

Mage 

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 5

New Beginnings

The group at the Head table, watched as the students and teachers filed out of the Hall to begin their days, the Aurors and Unspeakables not joining them this morning instead choosing to take their breakfast in the kitchens and avoid the students. It was looking to be a beautiful day outside, which they were sure the students would moan and groan about. It was to be expected after all. They were students; they always had to complain about something.

Deciding that the Head Table, though excellent in its own way would be unsuitable for this type of discussion, the lengthy group discussion type, the group made their way down to the Gryffindor Table, which to all of them felt a lot better, well softer than it had back in their school days. This of course was due to Harry's wandless charm, not due to miraculous softening of seats.

It was by unspoken agreement that the group made their way to the Gryffindor House table rather than the others, all being former Gryffindor's. All as well were silently grateful to avoid trudging all the way up to Albus's Office to which magical shortcuts were available, just not available to anyone but the Headmaster himself. 

Resuming awkward conversation once seated, no one had noticed Lily turn slightly green until she flew out the door holding her mouth presumably in search of the nearest bathroom.

Frowning James appeared to be worried and was quickly out of his seat and ready to follow. He was already moving towards the door as he made his excuses.

"Sorry, I'll just go see if Lilz is Okay…" was the vague sentence before he rushed out, power walking, towards the door his wife had just disappeared out of.

"Well then," began Albus "This is just the opportunity I was waiting for." 

"I trust you know of my other selves attempt to share his memories with me…"

They both nodded. 

"What do you mean attempt, it didn't work?" Harry cut in before he could finish.

Albus half-heartedly frowned at Harry, making an attempt at reprimand that he just knew would have no effect. He didn't really mind being interrupted but it was an old habit he had picked from dealing with children and uncooperative Ministers of Magic, not that there was much difference in fact the children were usually smarter, politer too. 

"Yes, Yes it was successful, however only select memories were shared, now based on what I have seen from the both of you I would like to offer you a place here at Hogwarts as joint Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor's…"

It was all Harry and Hermione could do not to gape at the Headmaster.

This was it, the final proof that Albus had gone mad! He wanted them to _teach?_

It was obvious that he hadn't learned anything about them from sharing some of their Albus's memories. They had been a nightmare in school, well not really in school per say but rather in their extra-circular activities although really they should have gotten extra credit on their school work as well as points for all the dangerous activities they got into, the Polyjuice Potion in second year would have practically passed them for second year.

It was really unavoidable…

"You What?" Harry half shouted, it wasn't that he didn't want the job, it was just, well, shock. This was not something he expected to happen in a million years

Albus appeared disappointed, he thought he had finally found them, the perfect teachers but ah well, he sighed, "You don't want it? Of course I understand if you don't…" 

"No Albus that's not what I meant," Harry said quickly recovering, noticing that Hermione was also starting to come out of her shocked state, it really shouldn't have been as big a shock for her as it was for him, he was sure at some point during their first four years at Hogwarts she had daydreamed about being a Professor.

"Of course we would love to teach here," answered Hermione "I've always wanted to be a teacher."

Harry smiled as he realized he was right about the daydreaming. 

"Yeah it showed." Harry responded dryly, he couldn't help it, habit. He had taken over Ron's teasing of Herm after his death, after all someone had to do it.

In any case he had to be sure that Albus knew what he was in for. 

"Are you sure you want us as Professors?" he asked, "I mean Albus must have showed you what we did in school, what we were like in school…" and if you still want to hire us you must be nutters, he thought to himself…

Albus jumped back in quickly, encouraged by the fact they were at least considering his offer, or in Hermione's case accepted, he could not understand Harry's hesitation.

"Of course, you would be perfect Defence Against the Dark Arts Professors, and I can assure you, you can't be any worse than Sirius Black, so long as you refrain from using the Dark Arts in the presence of students Harry, at least I can count on you not to add to the children's mischief making…" before adding as an afterthought "much."

Harry wasn't about to contradict the Headmaster, he knew he had done a lot of things in his time at Hogwarts that Albus never found out about, and that he never got caught for, like breaking into Snape's Storeroom, Polyjuice Potion, sneaking to Hogwarts and dozens of other things they had never gotten caught for…

Finally Harry sighed and nodded, he knew this would end up a lot more complicated than Albus was making it seem. That and he knew that Albus would probably live to regret this decision. Then again his Godfather had been a Professor, something that was very hard to imagine…

Albus smiled. "You can begin whenever you wish, just let me know when you are ready, you will have complete control of your curriculum, just try to stay away from the Dark Arts, if you could get it to me as soon as possible that would be nice…"Albus couldn't help but grin, he was afraid for awhile then he might have to teach the subject himself, if he hadn't found a suitable teacher soon, he was quite glad to hand the job over to two such capable youngsters.

Hermione's eyes lit up at the thought of writing the curriculum, "If you wish I will finish explaining to your parents whilst you two settle in, The Defence Classroom is currently on the fifth floor, third door to the left you are however welcome to change it if you wish… Bedchambers adjoin the classrooms as do the offices…" he proceeded to explain the not so exciting aspects of teaching at Hogwarts which Harry ignored and Hermione devoured. 

Towards the end of the explanations, just as Lily and James made their way back into the hall, Lily looking slightly better, he had moved on to tell them of their most recent predecessors, which wasn't quite as boring because their were some rather amusing stories to go along with them. 

As Lily and James settled in, after a quick explanation, basically letting them know the details of the events the previous night, Albus's visit, and leaving out the fact they were now Hogwarts Professors at Albus's suggestion, the two excused themselves, telling them that Albus would continue the explanations, to go to prepare themselves for the challenge, the challenge of teaching teenage witches and wizards. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My God, Harry thought heading towards their old Defence classroom, the one on the fifth floor which had been in use in recent years just didn't feel right, Hermione had drawn the honour of preparing the curriculum, which of course she loved, Harry of course would have a say in what was taught though 'Mione would mainly be dealing with that part of the teaching package for now, it was more her thing anyway.

So it was decided that Harry would be in charge of preparing the classroom. Something which he was looking forward to, it wasn't often that you got to design your own perfect classroom, he would be sure to make it far more interesting than the Transfiguration Classroom or the clichéd Potion's Dungeon. 

As he made his way to their new classroom he thought about the events of the day… 

He wasn't surprised that it had finally happened… He had been working up to it for awhile now…

Albus had finally gone insane.

And he had offered Harry and Hermione the Defence job.

He had to be mad; they had never even taken their OWL's let alone their NEWTS!

Did he even know that?

What on earth would happen when the parents found out that the Professors had never even completed school, never taken the very exams they were to prepare the students for?

Sure he knew Albus's perspective on Defence teachers was more than a little skewed but this was a bit much.

He sighed, he really shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, he would be more comfortable with the situation however if he knew a little more of Albus's reasoning. Sure he knew about the memory share between the two Headmasters but he did not know what he knew, what he didn't…Whatever it was must have been somewhat impressive for Albus to offer them the position so quickly.

They would have accepted no matter what of course, just because he asked but they couldn't help being nervous about this, they had never faced anything remotely similar to this challenge before, and even though they had been fighting the Dark Arts since practically the moment they found out they were wizards (that's what it felt like anyway) they couldn't help but feel grossly under qualified to teach, in a school at least…especially such a well known school as Hogwarts. 

He would have to have a talk to Albus later about doing their OWL's and NEWT's they would likely pass them easily but he would feel a little better about teaching when he at least HAD the qualifications they were encouraging others to obtain.

How anyone could think that he, Harry Potter was suitable to teach children he couldn't imagine, Hermione maybe but… well maybe it wouldn't be that bad, as Sirius would say, think of all the little kiddies you can corrupt, that managed to bring a smile to his face, he missed Sirius, his Sirius, he still had not met the one from here but he had gotten the impression that this one was a lot different to the one he was used to. 

Not going to Azkaban for twelve years would probably do that to a person though.

Professor Black, yeah that was a good one, it was not that he didn't have faith in Sirius's skills, he did, his life had depended on it more than once, it was just that when he had gone though his training Sirius had tried to help him but failed miserably, he felt kind of sorry for the students if this Sirius's ability to explain was anywhere near as warped as his Godfathers.

He had a sudden thought, and groaned.

Professor Potter, when on earth did he manage to get so old?

Well he couldn't really be considered old really; he was only nineteen, which was what two years out of Hogwarts? He was closer to the age of the students than he was to any of his fellow staff members minus 'Mione and she didn't really count.

Harry looked at the old Defence classroom, time for some changes he thought with a smile.

This particular room had been abandoned years ago when a certain Sirius Black had complained it was too plain, secretly Harry thought that his Godfather would not be able to concentrate on teaching in a classroom he had wreaked so much havoc…

But Harry could not imagine the Defence classroom anywhere else, but even so it had been abandoned for years and he did have to enlarge it a little, and making it a little more interesting couldn't hurt now could it?

Magically changing the room to fit his specifications was particularly fun for Harry especially adding new features such as a duelling room with see though walls off to one side, A platform for himself and Hermione and a magical blackboard that would automatically write up prearranged notes when given a signal, he added a weapons rooms next to the duelling room also with see though walls but with much stronger wards as for the moment it was only there to intimidate students.

As a rather EVIL afterthought he added in large comfortable chairs not unlike those in the Divination Classroom but these were bright fluro colours, Hot Pink, Light Blue, and Fluro Green were some of his favourites, you might ask why this would be considered EVIL? Well of course he was going to attempt to instil CONSTANT VIGILANCE and to learn that from a nice big comfy chair similar to those you can easily go to sleep on… well.

As a final touch he charmed the door, a beautiful golden griffin now graced the door, which would no doubt delight the Gryffindor's and irk the Slytherins and above it he laid the words…** Si vis pacem, para bellum**, **If you want peace, prepare for war.**

**That would be sure to get the more attentive students, or those who had bothered to learn Latin's attention…**

**It was meant as a warning,  a sign of things to come, a warning against complacency.**

Hermione surveyed the classroom with satisfaction, she had to admit, when Harry put his mind to it he could really do some brilliant work. It had to be the best classroom in the entire castle perfect for what they were going to use it for, perfect for teaching Defence. It was something that she would have loved when she was in school, cool while it still looked like someone competent was in charge, it was definitely somewhere she would enjoy herself.

She had spent all morning working on the curriculum, and it was finally finished, she was happy with it but she wasn't sure how Harry would react when he found out he would be teaching students on his own, the classroom would need minor modifications to fit with what she had planned out, but it wasn't all that serious.

Albus had been quite impressed when she had dropped off the curriculum and explained how she had planned to teach the classes, he had also not expected her to have the work back to him so early, but oh well she had dreamed about this for so long it was hardly surprising she already had her curriculum planned out.

She had no idea where Harry was, he was supposed to be in here, fixing the classroom, but seeing as he was finished she had to wonder where he had gotten off to, normally that wouldn't be a problem, but here everything was a little blurred at the moment and she did not know what Harry would do here, here where everything that had led their lives for so long no longer existed, this was only her second day here but she could feel her own uncertainty at the situation quite clearly, it was not really surprising, she had not even had a chance to realize and accept Voldemort's death before she had herself pulled into another dimension where all the things she had been fighting for, the security they had longed for was just floating around like it had never been in danger at all. It was of course quite a shock the normal process of things would have had her return to this kind of atmosphere gradually, but she realised she had never really had this kind of security before.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Harry was doing something that he had not been able to for a long time, something he was born to do, FLY

Sure it was a school broom, sure it wasn't state of the art, sure it was exceptionally slow, but it was flying, and it was something Harry desperately missed.

Months into his training he had been forced to give up flying, even for pleasure there was just too much going on, too much work, and later too much that needed his attention.

Worries flew out of his head as he flew the broom, pulling off manoeuvres that were downright dangerous on his Firebolt and were bordering suicidal on his current broom of choice.

It was mid afternoon when he was forced to relinquish his broom to allow the first years to practice, he felt somewhat lost here, having nothing much to do he made his way back up the Great Hall, which was currently host to several bored Aurors and a trio of Unspeakables. It was not a good mix.

It was an incredibly bad idea to leave so many powerful people in the same place with nothing to do, it was a recipe for disaster, one he would have to remedy.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hermione was drawn to the sounds echoing out of the Great Hall, one voice above all the others was immediately recognisable to her. 

Harry's.

How could they have been so stupid, she gritted her teeth and entered the Great Hall, you never leave immensely powerful people with nothing to do in a room together, it was a recipe for disaster, and just what was Harry doing in there with them?

She should have known better than to ask, he was liable to be the most powerful wizard on the planet, he was also liable to be very bored having finished what he was doing for the day. Knowing Harry he most likely started the whole thing. For entertainment! 

Thus she was somewhat surprised at the vision that met her disbelieving eyes when she entered.

Harry was actually teaching the Aurors, Unspeakables looking on in a mixture of approval and interest. It was most definitely not what she was expecting. A free for all with petty insults being thrown around she could deal with, but this? 

Yeah, sure she had been planning on having Harry teach advanced students but that did not mean that she expected him, in his boredom to actually seek out people to teach, especially not those already trained to catch Dark Wizards, what was even more surprising was that they were actually listening to him…

She sunk down onto a seat at one of the house tables, Ravenclaw, mouth hanging open in amazement at the sight, they had noticed her arrival of course but they were so absorbed in the teachings of the young man in front of them.

They had at first listened to what he had to say just because he had by chance they thought taken out an Unspeakable yesterday, notably the most experienced people in combat in this world, and this boy had taken out one of their best, and had done it with ease. At first they thought it had been dumb luck, they were now seeing otherwise.

The boy had the most interesting concepts, some of the best ideas they had ever heard, especially the combination of muggle and magical weapons, at first they had been sceptical but after a VERY brief demonstration they had quickly accepted him, and his ideas. To an extent.

Harry had not long began teaching muggle weapons to the Aurors, when he was hit by an overwhelming urge to sleep, every time he closed his eyes he was hit by a barrage of colours, he was beginning to get very disorientated. Deciding it would probably be a good idea to sleep, he excused himself and started to make his way to his room, his brain argued, that he might be coming down with something, it wasn't long before he reached his room slightly dazed and barely flopping onto the bed before his eyes drifted closed. He had failed to notice a concerned Hermione cautiously following…

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

Harry looked around at the mist surrounding him, it had surrounded him the minute he had closed his eyes. It was quite similar to the mist that had been present in his dream last night, his dream of Albus, but this was unaccountably different. He didn't know how but he knew this was not Albus's doing.

Instead of being made up entirely of silver, as Albus's mist had, this mist integrated every colour in the spectrum. He found the way the mist swirled around him infinitely more disturbing than his previous experience had been, the mist was more turbulent, war like, storm like than Albus's tame counterpart, he was grateful, slightly, though still wary, when another figure came into sight and the sand, as it had before, dropped calmly to the ground.

The Wizard in front of him was not old; he looked to be in his mid forties, yet an inexplicable sense of age radiated off the form, his robes, though clearly indicated that he was from a different era entirely. The man clearly held the messy raven hair that was impossible to tame, Potter hair, yet that seemed to be one of the very few features the two held in common, despite that the two were obviously related in some way.

"Hello Harry, you were rather difficult to track down, hopping across dimensions and what not, miracle I was able to find you on time actually, if I hadn't happened upon your old headmaster I fear I would not have found you at all." The man spoke with an amused voice but there was a clear urgency behind the voice.

Harry decided that although he would like to know who the man was it was not important for the moment and decided to go on to the more pressing subject of WHY this man had seen fit to seek him, across dimensions as well as the plains of death and just WHY it was so important that he seek him.

"Why are you here?" he asked he was still wary he did not know much about these dream things but he wasn't sure what could and could not happen here, you don't spend years of your life hunted by a homicidal maniac then fighting him in an all out war and NOT come out a little paranoid.

"Well, not very trusting are we?" the mysterious wizard countered clearly amused at his bold question. "Wouldn't you rather know who I am?" he asked baiting the boy to change his question, death was really rather boring and word plays were a rather amusing way to pass the time, once you were dead as long as he was it became rather a bad habit when it came to times like this where there wasn't much time, but well then again things like this technically should not really be happening at all.

"No I would rather know what you are doing here." Harry stated, this guy was just making him uneasy something he definitely didn't need, he was uneasy enough as it was, he was teaching for the very first time tomorrow, well he'd be finding out when he would be teaching a class for the first time tomorrow. It was strange how he could think so clearly about the waking world while he was so clearly dreaming…

"Okay, Okay already! I am Merlin and you are my heir, you are destined to be the most powerful wizard ever, well you already are but that's beside the point, you had to be told after all, you have been prophesised many a time and likely will be again now this visit does have a purpose, I am here to give you the Amulet of Quechz which will bind your wandless powers for another five years, although you will still be able to access portions of that power in the meantime, you need to find my books and train yourself before the five years is up or when the time runs out you will literally destroy yourself and everyone within one hundred yards of your location… well unless you actually WANT to die I suggest you actually train…"

"So what? I get more super powers is that what you're saying? And if I don't train myself I will kill myself and everyone in the immediate vicinity when this thing runs out?"

"No you will not get super powers you will get MY powers, as well as others, most of which however you have already discovered but must be controlled or well you know. Wandless magic is one of the main powers you will receive as well as the ability to talk to certain animals… well when I say animals I mean most reptiles, as for the training yes that is w hat will happen should you decide to ignore my warnings."

He really felt like being childish here, he didn't know what it was about the old man that brought it out in him, he just did, and Harry just could not resist whining.

"So what? I'll be able to talk to reptiles some of the vilest and disgusting creatures if you ask me, and anyway isn't being able to talk to snakes the mark of a Dark Wizard well evil wizard, well I'm not evil but I don't count, so are you a Dark Wizard? And I HAVE to be tremendously powerful, Do I REALLY have to? And I thought I got my abilities from Voldemort, Anyway back to the Dark Wizard bit…" Merlin cut him off

"Good God no I AM NOT A DARK WIZARD, well not much anyway I don't work on the principals of Dark and Light, rather like you actually except you don't really realize you are doing it, and don't you listen?" he sighed in exasperation who knew your heir could be so dim-witted. "You can talk to some reptiles I would have gone insane listening to every little creatures ramblings, I would have never got any peace…"

"Sure you didn't, you sure you didn't go insane?" Harry asked sceptically, "I mean this is a bit far-fetched, I mean I am supposed to have got my parseltongue ability from Voldemort but your saying I got it from you…"

"No I didn't go insane," Merlin growled out how come his heir has to be so annoying! "You will find the amulet underneath your pillow when you awaken, you must put it on immediately for I do not know exactly when you will receive your major wandless powers…"

Merlin was cut off when the mist suddenly receded and he was wretched out of his unconscious state. The last thing he saw was a rather agitated but at the same time relieved Merlin who was finally getting rid of that annoying little brat.

Hermione was standing over him with a concerned expression on her face. She had been trying to shake him awake for several minutes and he had not been responding. She knew her fear was showing on her face, she looked at him willing him to relieve her fears and doubts.

Harry said nothing but reached under his pillow and pulled out the amulet.

The Amulet was held by a strong silver chain around his neck, but it was not the necklace that fascinated him, it was the stone, the Amulet itself that held his attention, turquoise bordered by elaborate patterns of silver and gold, it was without a doubt powerful, magically powerful, however he could not determine whether or not it was truly dangerous.

Harry quickly related the details of his dream to Hermione, who stuck to being adamant on her opinion of not being sure of her opinion, moving from one extreme to another in a matter of seconds, one minute she would demand he put it on, the next stating it was too dangerous and that they should study it first followed by arguing back to herself that it could be more dangerous not to put it on.

Harry for his part was too rapped up in examining the amulet, he could find no obvious traces of deep dark magic, there was a fair amount of Dark Magic, but nothing that could really hurt him, making his decision he lifted the amulet and put it around his neck, stopping Hermione mid rant.

Well he stopped her for a moment unfortunately as soon as it was apparent that no permanent damage had been done she started a lecture on how that was 'really immature and really dangerous' adding in 'we don't even really know what that thing does' followed by 'take it off right this instant.'

Deciding to humour her so as not to have to put up with the pain of having himself lectured to death, he attempted to remove the amulet.

Attempted being the operative word.

It wouldn't come off.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Albus had just left Lily and James alone to digest the information he had given them, it wasn't everything he knew but it was enough to give them a clear picture as to the life their son had lived in the other dimension. It was clear enough now, they knew why the pair would prefer the background to the spotlight, it was enough to make Lily and James sick to the stomach at the many horrible things the pair had been made to inflict and endure, it was enough to make them accept them and help them see that life did not have to be that way and enough to make them truly accept, Or at least Lily did, James was still a little sceptical on how Albus had learned so much about them so fast.

If the story was true even James would like the kid to see him as the parent he had never had, they wanted to help him get adjusted here, they wanted a child, Lily of course knew that they would have one soon, a child that unlike Harry would live with them, grow up with them, learn the facts of life from them, she wasn't sure how she was going to tell James yet, but she would, just not yet, they needed some time between just them and Harry.

They were sufficiently surprised When Albus poked his head around the door and told them that dinner was being served; they had been in here for an hour and a half already.

They arrived to find Hermione, trying, unsuccessfully to scold Harry for something or other and Harry well Harry was conducting a lively conversation with the present Aurors and Unspeakables, well he was lecturing the Aurors while holding what seemed to be a debate with the Unspeakables simultaneously.

"I tell you it is amazing what you can do when you combine wizard and muggle technology, I mean, guns, swords, daggers, grenades, bombs…" Harry trailed off with a wistful expression which was really quite disturbing, lucky Hermione had still not given up and took the opportunity to whack him over the head, which only served to jolt him out of his daydream a little, it was quite obvious this was a common occurrence, and Hermione looked quite furious at his lack of response, eyes roaming around her surroundings for a better weapon. Luckily for him he snapped out of it. 

"So you are saying that these muggle weapons are more effective than our wands, it's preposterous!" Mr Oldfeild oldest Unspeakable in the group from the Ministry exclaimed, not only was he the oldest he was also the most experienced and to think this young upstart had the gall to think that muggle weapons were BETTER than a good wand!

"No Mr Oldfeild that is not what I said, I said they can have amazing results when you combine them, the enemy doesn't expect it, many Dark Wizards as I am sure you know are purebloods and have little if any idea how to deal with muggle weapons. And if you have enough skill you may be able to beat a wizard with a wand" Harry smiled; Mr Oldfeild was obviously a pureblood and would fall down to an onslaught of a combined magical and muggle attack.

Mr Oldfeild still did not seem to accept this explanation; he could not understand how Harry could think so highly of muggle technology, the Aurors and other two Unspeakables looked interested, always ready to pick up new skills, and this young man had already proven to hold a vast amount of knowledge this afternoon. 

James decided to join in and settle the argument, he had heard all about Harry's skills, a lot of them from Albus this afternoon, but also from the Auror's who had seen him at work this afternoon, and was curious to see them in action, and to see how his best measured up against him, in other words to see who would win.

"How about you demonstrate the effectiveness of the combined method after dinner Harry, I am sure Mr Oldfeild would have no complaints to a duel against you, since he is so adamant your methods will not work." James gave Harry a charming smile and a wink. Harry grinned broadly in reply, Mr Oldfeild had enough poise left to attempt to look calm, it wasn't working, he had seen some of the magical skill the kid had demonstrated this afternoon, he had little doubt even without the muggle weapons he could defeat him. 

"How about we make it interesting though," Harry replied, "I only get to use muggle weapons, wait a minute, will you I am just going to ask Albus something" Harry threaded his way to behind the Headmaster and started whispering in his ear, obviously what he said pleased the Headmaster because he soon had a wide grin on his face.

Heading back to his seat Harry couldn't help but smile, he would not only demonstrate to the Aurors and Unspeakables the benefits of combining technology but to the school community as well, it might serve to teach the purebloods in the school to treat muggleborns with a little more respect as well.

Sitting back down Harry would not reveal to anyone what he had just asked the Headmaster, all he said was "You'll know after dinner."

After the meal was finished the Headmaster asked all students to remain in their seats. It was a quite unusual request because the students were used to coming and going as they pleased at dinnertime, for the first time they noticed that the Hall Doors, usually open had been closed since halfway through the meal.

"Today we have a special treat for all those wishing to attend." The Headmaster began all eyes on him. "After I finish you will all have half an hour before you are allowed back into the Great Hall, Today one of our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers, Professor Potter, will give a lecture on the benefits of using muggle weapons in combat." Here the Slytherins quietly declared they did not want to know about anything that involved muggles because they were obviously inferior. Although they were only muttering quietly Albus raised his voice so that they would not miss the next part, it was most important that the Slytherins attend they were the main targets of this performance of course. "Following the lecture Professor Potter will give a demonstration against Unspeakable Mr Gavin Oldfeild, should you wish to attend you must be back inside the Hall by quarter to nine, which is precisely forty five minutes from now, if you could please file out of the hall"

All eyes turned to Harry before there was a roar from the crowd as they began discussing the possibilities of tonight's lecture/performance.


	6. 6 Lecterns and Leg Injuries

Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 13

Lecterns and Leg Injuries

When the students returned to the Great Hall its appearance had been changed greatly.

The doors to the Great Hall now led to the high end a tiered lecture theatre, at the base was an arena filled with sand and a large black platform from which it was assumed the lecture would take place, muggle-born students made comparisons between the current Great Hall and muggle movies such as Gladiator except for the fact that they were inside and had no lions running around, they didn't have a Caesar either but Dumbledore was close enough, he was a great exalted leader after all who nobody would ever question.

There was a great turnout for the lecture, teachers remarked that it had to be a miracle that the students, especially Slytherins actually came; this was an entirely optional lecture after all.

But then again few of the teachers had been required to attend either.

The Slytherins stuck together in one section of the stands, other houses however spread out and intermingled, sharing theories on what exactly was going to happen, few came close to the real nature of the demonstration, none could contemplate the idea of facing another wizard in combat without any magic at all, it was hard enough to contemplate the integration of muggle weapons with the wand, though not as hard as it was for the teachers to get their heads around.

So it was that the Great Hall was actually very loud, so loud in fact that the many teachers struggling to maintain order soon all but gave up muttering about lack of organization, Professor McGonagall was particularly flustered, so used to her ordered classroom. Sitting back at her place next to Albus Dumbledore she was not in the least surprised to find him so obviously inwardly laughing at her efforts, it was hard to miss when he refused to look at her and when he did his eyes would easily betray his feelings.

Minerva was more than a little surprised when the young man announced to be half of the new Defence combination Harry Potter drew all attention, and silence to himself with only a single cough as he entered the room.

He was rather cheerful looking, looked a lot like James at his age, yet there was something different about him, something hidden just below the surface which contradicted the image of merriness he was outwardly showing. Then again it could be that the boy had made his first appearance in her life just two days before in bloodied battle robes. 

He stood casually on the podium as all eyes were fixed on him, yet he seemed totally at ease, as if addressing large crowds was an everyday occurrence. Which in a way it was.

"Hello everyone and welcome to the lecture, today's lecture was brought about by a conversation with Mr. Gavin Oldfeild at dinner tonight, I know it is rather short notice but I know after tonight you will have a lot to think about."

Harry held up his wand.

"Can anybody tell me what this is?" he asked. 

The student body was dumbfounded, why he was asking such a stupid question was beyond them, was he a muggle, is that why he was defending muggle weapons, no that couldn't be right Dumbledore said a witch and a wizard from another dimension. A muggle born first year (Hufflepuff) answered his question for the stunned student body.

"It's a wand." He answered excitedly; he was the first person to answer the new teacher's question.

"Correct, in a manner of speaking, this is a magical conduit, it acts as an insulator between the wizard and magic, and it concentrates magic and allows us to perform magic correct?"

This time there was more of a reaction a series of 'yes's' echoed around the hall, some nodded their heads but there were some, mostly Ravenclaw's who looked doubtful.

"Once again I must disagree, are there not other ways to concentrate magic?" he asked leaning against a desk that had appeared out of nowhere and cocking his head to the side.

A nervous Ravenclaw sixth year raised her hand, Harry nodded his head in her direction, "What is your name?" he asked gently he didn't want to scare them, he wanted them to talk to him, to think about what was happening.

"Rachel Nobles sir." She answered not quite so nervous, she was still not completely confident at addressing her idea at the entire school.

"Now Rachel what are your thoughts on this."

"Well Professor, we must be able to unconsciously control magic, because when we were little we did wandless magic, so a wand is not essential to concentrating magic, is it?" she was a little uncertain about this they had never really discussed this subject in school before, and it was not really approached much in the library, the Ravenclaw solution to all problems, right next to studying.

"No it is not, however that is not the subject we will be covering today, its just an interesting little starter, so tell me what happens when in battle, you lose this?" he said pointing at his wand.

He was met with silence.

"So basically when you are running for your life you drop your wand and that's it, your done for is that what you are saying?" more silence

"OK, so what you are all saying is that without your wand you can't defend yourselves, there is nothing you can do? You are nothing without your wand?"

Silence, though not dumbfounded silence, interested silence.

"Today I will show you some techniques used by muggles to defend themselves, after all without your wands you are muggles right? Defenceless? WRONG, but that is not what we are here for today."

"OK I am going to show you some muggle weapons and I want you to try and tell me what it is."

He held up a dagger, and shouts of "DAGGER" lit up the hall.

"Yes this is a dagger, used in close combat or to distract your opponent coming into close combat, to get the best effect you must be close to your assailant."

"OK Next what is this?" he held up a sword, Godric's sword to be exact but they did not have to know that, of course living in the castle and having seen them all over the place the student body had no trouble identifying the object. 

"Swords, there are many different types of swords there is the Long Sword," one appeared on the table and he put down Godric's sword in favour of holding up the new one, 

"The long sword was a weapon used mainly during the middle and late medieval period for muggles at which time witch burnings were somewhat a fashion, wizards of the time often carried weapons as such…" he said making a sweeping gesture at the sword and the dagger on the table. "This is the reason you encounter many such souvenirs around the castle."

"Anyway back to the Long Sword, It is both an offensive and defensive weapon and can be used for parries and deflections, as well as, cuts and thrusts, cuts are delivered as slices or extremely powerful chopping blows, although mainly used with two hands it can be used with one," he said demonstrating this by skilfully handling the sword with one hand. "This allows for the use of the other free hand to cause more damage to your opponent."

"A long sword consists of a blade, a cross-guard, a handle and a pommel." He said pointing to the specific parts of the blade, "The blade comes in two basic styles, a straight cutting blade and a tapered thrusting blade, though both styles can cut and thrust. The cross-guard is generally straight, but it can be curved and its ends may be rounded, spiked or ornate. A long sword handle has enough space for two-handed use; it can be waisted and has an oval cross- section. The pommel is a counter weight to the blade and comes in many shapes and sizes. Because of this, it can be a formidable weapon in its own right, when used to strike hammer-like blows."

"Next we have the Short Sword" he said picking up the next weapon, "which is used in association with shields, not particularly useful or commonly used not a great weapon to use if you have a choice, unless you have a shield which is unlikely anyway for today so we will move on, a broadsword is a sword with a wide, straight, double-edged blade used mostly by mounted troops from the 1700's to 1800's."

"Anyway moving on to more modern times, we have a normal handgun, an AK-47, a machine gun etc, if my lovely assistant could please conjure up a target?" he said moving so as the crowd was at his back.

Hermione conjured up a target, more like a bullseye; she knew exactly what he would do with it.

Harry shot with the pistol first aiming and firing directly on target, the centre of the bullseye, next he used the AK-47 and put a ring of holes around the white ring, finally he set up the machine gun and massacred the target into tiny little bits.

Smiling he turned to the crowd, "Unfortunately I wasn't able to get or make a bomb on such short notice but I trust you have noticed that any of these weapons would be MORE than sufficient to do some damage."

"However there is one more important weapon that I have not shown you yet, one that all of you have and in the event of the loss of you wand you would STILL have."

"Anyone?"

"Yourself." He answered after no one was forthcoming.

"Huh", "What's he talking about", "Nutters"

Harry coughed again to get their attention.

"Has anyone ever heard of Martial Arts?" there was an intake of breath as some of the audience realized what he was talking about, "For those of you who don't know what we are talking about myself and Professor Granger will give a demonstration. 

Hermione came back out dressed in a reasonably loose black T-shirt that cut off around her waist leaving a strip a few centimetres above her belly button which was pierced, a oddity in itself for a witch, even muggleborns as after Hogwarts they had little to no contact with muggle fashion trends and on her lower back was a tattoo of a Gryffindor lion, moving of course as most wizarding tattoos do currently it was pacing her back stopping every now and then to roar, silently of course at anything and everything, and she wore loose tracksuit pants that would not restrict her movement.

"Hand to Hand combat is probably your best chance if you lose your wand as unlike me and a few other paranoid people you are not likely to have any other weapons on you should you be attacked unexpectedly."

"OK then Hermione will be the attacker whilst I am attacked. As this is only a demonstration on hand to hand combat neither of us will use our wands"

Hermione stepped forward and began her attack at Harry who promptly stepped out of the way, thus it continued for several minutes until Harry moved into the fight, after a series of kicks and punches, not a very long one at that, that was far to fast for the student body or the teachers to follow Hermione found herself pinned beneath Harry, not that she hadn't expected that of course, she was good but Harry was the master of these kinds of things. Grinning she accepted his hand and pulled herself back onto her feet before kicking him in the lower stomach causing him to double over in pain.

 "Let that be a lesson to you, never let your guard down, even if it is someone you know, you can never be to sure the person you are with is actually that person, you never know who will attack or where. As an old teacher told us, CONSTANT VIGILANCE of course he only told us because he had to, to maintain the character he was impersonating but it is important. Remember CONSTANT VIGILANCE, I'll let Harry get back to getting his butt kicked. Have Fun…"

 "OK well back to the lecture," said Harry still recovering from that cheap shot of Hermione's, "The next thing we are covering is magical verses muggle attacks and counterattacks, though I am not going to tell my opponent the counters, they will be covered in class for anyone that is interested."

 "Now I am not recommending that any of you try this, if you want to learn come to me, do not try this on your own, it is far to dangerous and must be worked up to gradually." 

As he talked Harry gathered up his weapons, he leaned towards the older weapons, such as the sword and the dagger, as well as some unconventional muggle items which normally wouldn't be considered weapons, such as screw drivers and hammers, though he only kept them because it was amusing to watch people reactions to the weapons, though occasionally they proved rather effective. The AK-47 was a must.

 "Mr Oldfeild if you please," Harry said waiting for his opponent to come through the door, senses on high alert, as he expected Gavin wasted no time in attacking him with spells, luckily for Harry they were all visible and easily dodgeable, but if Mr Oldfeild was as good as they said it wouldn't take him long to work out to use invisible spells, as a curtesy gesture he send back one of his daggers aiming and achieving a small cut across the face, it wasn't aimed to injure really it was aimed to enrage, enraging his opponent would work in his advantage, he would not think as clearly, he would not notice the ground he was closing.

But the students did.

Harry moved closer, closer just a little closer, swinging his sword he made a significant cut in his upper wand arm, not enough to sever if, but down to the bone, blood splattered across the sand and Gavin temporarily fell to the ground, he was beaten…

Or maybe not, though not accustomed to fighting with a physical injury, he would not allow himself to be beaten so easily, ignoring the pain from his arm, the fact that it would not respond to his commands, he grabbed his wand with his other hand, it was a rare skill and one that took a lot of training, using your wand with both hands but as an Auror he had honed the skill so if something like this ever happen he would not be defenceless.

And he shot off the first spell that came to his mind.

"Impedimenta"

And it hit.

"Stupefy" 

And it hit…

The sword, Harry's movement had slowed but not enough to seriously benefit Mr Oldfeild he was slower now, but he was so fast normally that he still had the advantage.

The stunning spell reflected back at Mr Oldfeild whose eyes widened in disbelief, nothing but a shield, a very advanced one should reflect magic back at him, but he didn't have time to worry about this because all to soon the spell had hit.

And he had lost.

Harry limped over and leaned against one of the walls, the Impedimenta curse had hit him in the leg, one injured not to long ago, and it hurt, but that at least was something he was used to, taking a deep breath and promising himself he would risk a trip to Madame Pomfrey later he stepped forward to finish his lecture, showing no more visible signs of a limp, or pain. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Wings beat up and down in a steady rhythm as the owl trekked across the country, sun barely above the horizon, she had been flying most of the night, the owl was tired but this was its duty, to deliver letters to wherever its master told it to. The owl didn't mind much it enjoyed its life, delivering her wizards letters gave her life meaning, unlike the mundane undignified wild owls that did nothing but eat sleep and procreate.

She was currently delivering a letter to Sirius Black, a rather strange character but one to which her normally quite intelligent master wrote to on a regular basis, though for the last few years he had not been particularly happy with Black's replies, temper tantrums following replies he had recently been very happy with Blacks correspondence, she couldn't understand why, fickle humans, but it happened, she was still wary of this Black character, waiting for him to upset her master again.

She was quite surprised by Black's reaction to the letter, she could not read so the only indication she ever got of what the letters she carried contained was the reactions of the wizards receiving them, and the odd occasion when they would read them aloud to themselves, she wasn't particularly interested in what the letters contained anyway, except when it upset her master. Anyway Blacks reaction was very strange, absent was the lately normal cheerful attitude, absent was the previous seething anger, all he was doing was sitting and gaping, opening and closing his mouth and not making a sound.

She was quite annoyed her orders had been to wait for a reply, but the wizard didn't look like he would be doing so anytime soon, well without encouragement at least.

Hovering back up into the air, she perched herself on his shoulder and started nibbling his ear.

Nothing.

Well if he wouldn't respond she would have to resort to more drastic methods, pausing for a second to think about her actions and deciding she had no choice with her beak still poised either side of his ear she bit down hard.

Sirius displayed no sign that the bite had hurt, even though the bite had managed to draw a little blood, but he did seem slightly more with it than he had a moment before.

"I have a Godson…" he whispered to himself, nothing could have prepared him for the letter from James, the letter that told him that his Godson, Harry was alive, was here, was living and breathing, sure he was from another dimension but he was still his Godson. James had asked in a slightly accusatory manner whether he had told anyone about the scar, they had had problems since Harry's death with impersonators trying to gain the Potter fortune, especially when it became apparent that no other heir would be forthcoming, years of trying and they had not been able to have another child.

But now there was Harry, he was sure it was, the scar was the proof, no one had known but the three of them, and none of them had told anyone.

His Godson was here, he had to see him, he stood up, dislodging the owl perched on his shoulder in the process, he took no notice, he swept forward and pulled on a cloak making for the fireplace, he would Floo to Hogsmeade and trek up to the castle he could be there in half and hour just in time for breakfast.

He stopped, a few years ago he would have been out the door without a care in the world, but now there was Melody, and Melody would not be happy if he just went running off without telling her first.

Thus he had hit a dilemma, he had to tell Melody where he was going and why, but Melody was asleep and HATED to be woken, he couldn't leave a note because she wouldn't think to look for one, so he had two choices, wait for Mel to wake up or to wake Mel up so he could leave as soon as possible.

Sirius Black was not one for waiting so he decided on the latter.

Walking into his room he couldn't help but smile at his wife, she was starting to really show and looked really peaceful in her sleep, but he had to go, and he had to go now, he had to wake her…

He hesitated, Mel got really mad when you woke her up, but then again whenever he had woken her before it hadn't been with anything important, it wouldn't be that bad, Mel would understand, wouldn't she?

Yes she would understand, she would understand if she took the time to let him explain instead of attempting to murder him on the spot.

Timidly he shook her awake, being timid was not a trait that suited Sirius Black very well, but he wasn't stupid, Melody was not known for being her serene self in the morning, it would not do to wake her up with his old maraudering ways, because although serene in nature at all times except the mornings Melody Black had a horrible temper when you got on her bad side, couple that with a rather large vocabulary of spells, curses, hexes and jinxes and you did not have a good combination.

Melody opened her eyes blearily to see her husband hovering over her with a worried expression on his face, she found herself doing something entirely out of character, she woke herself up immediately, she had never seen Sirius look so strange, it was like he was unsure of what exactly he should be feeling at the moment, and he was looking worried an emotion that didn't sit well with Sirius unless there was something REALLY wrong, and he wouldn't have woken her unless there was something REALLY wrong.

"What happened?" she asked holding back the tears, she was sure it was going to be really bad, Sirius never acted seriously without a good reason even though he was somewhat more subdued these days he was always happy-go-lucky and determined to see the good side of things, even when Voldemort had been around he had kept his spirits high, not that they had been together then, they had been working for the same side and had met each other in passing but nothing more until years years later, when they had finally got together both had wondered why they hadn't done it sooner, noticed each other sooner.

She was somewhat shocked when he managed a really big smile and brandished the piece of parchment that had come by owl only ten minutes earlier, she snatched then letter and read it through, read it through once, read it through twice before reading it through a third time. 

She was confused, she couldn't quite get the idea of inter-dimensional travel through her head, she couldn't seem to get anything through her head she was too shocked, and then she noticed that Sirius had his travelling cloak on. 

She smiled.

"And where exactly are you going?" she asked struggling to keep the grin off her face, forgetting the complicated stuff for a few minutes she went back to her favourite past-time, teasing Sirius.

"To Hogwarts…" he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"In your pyjamas?"

"My Pyjama's?"

"Yes you do realize that you are still wearing them right?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hermione was not happy, she had been working on her new project, happily tinkering away with her quill and parchment trying to find a solution to the impossible, when an OWL interrupts her musing, an OWL.

Did people ever even stop to think that she might be working when they sent these working interrupting spawn of the devil creatures that had interrupted her line of thought and WOULD NOT STOP PECKING HER FINGERS.

Sure she had been ignoring the bird hoping it would go away, but it wouldn't, and now her poor fingers were in desperate need of bandaids. Not that she would use bandaids of course, she was a witch, she didn't need bandaids…

Resigning herself to correspondence with the rest of the human race, well the wizarding world the untied the letter from the bird, which promptly flew off, putting the letter back down on the table unopened Hermione went back to her work, pleased with herself having beaten the annoying creature, however after awhile curiosity got the better of her and she opened the letter, just to see who was writing, Hermione didn't have many friends, in fact Hermione did not really have ANY friends, she had acquaintances.

She was surprised when she noticed the Hogwarts seal but she was even more surprised by the contents of the letter.

_Dear Ms Granger, _

_We are sorry to disturb your work, (so you should be) but there has been a rather strange occurrence at Hogwarts and your presence is required as soon as you have a spare moment, please proceed directly to my office upon your arrival, the password is Pringles._

_Sincerely _

_Albus Dumbledore _

What would an occurrence at Hogwarts have to do with _her? _

I mean sure she knew every little fact every published in Hogwarts: A History but that really didn't mean much, she was sure lots of people had, not that she would really know, she didn't associate with others well.

Maybe they needed her help with something; maybe they had made a new and exciting discovery for her to study! With that lovely thought she apparated to Hogsmeade, eager to meet with the Headmaster and learn of the reason she was being called to Hogwarts.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

"Hermione, I don't care if I miss breakfast I know where the kitchens are, can you please just leave me alone and let me _sleep_!"

"Harry it would be rude to miss breakfast, I am sure a lot of people will want to talk to you this morning after your little display last night, we have only been here two days it would be bad manners not to go to Breakfast with everybody else."

"I don't care I just want to sleep." He replied grumpily. It wasn't entirely a lie, he did want to sleep, but getting up would require putting weight on his leg, something he was dreading at the moment, Hermione knew about the leg injury he had incurred from a stray curse a few months ago, it had nearly severed his leg, and it was a weak spot, what she didn't know was that it was currently hurting from a spell hitting it last night in the exact same place it had broken. 

Hermione however was not going to be sympathetic, because she didn't know, and if Harry had anything to do with it, wouldn't know that he was hurting.

So when she dragged the covers of the bed and started pulling at his arms, he got up with only minor protests, sleepiness acting as a cover for the faint wince he could not prevent as weight was put onto his injured leg. 

Two days, they had been here for two days, it was kind of hard to believe but it was true, this was the third day here and if it was anything like the last two he thought he might just go and crawl back into bed.

Bed now there was a lovely thought, it was warm, it was inviting. And now thanks to Hermione it was totally void of himself. 

He had tried to tell her that he didn't care about missing Breakfast, but she didn't seem to be listening.

With a sigh he finished getting dressed, sparing one last glace at the oh-so-appealing bed before trudging out the door after Hermione making sure to keep the wince off his face and the limp out of his walk. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Remus was up not long after dawn as per usual, tottering around in his kitchen he sat down at the table calmly drinking his tea and waiting for his daughter Lana to wake up.

Lana Lupin was his adopted daughter, as a lycanthrope he was unable to have any children of his own lest he pass on his illness, it was not illegal as it had been some years ago for a lycanthrope to have children, however the idea of passing on his curse to a child was something Remus would ever even contemplate; in fact he would not have contemplated adopting a child had it not been for Lana's situation.

Lana Lupin had began her life as a normal pureblood child, her family though pure-blooded and with a purebloods prejudice was her family, she had had parents who loved her, a little brother and an older sister, life had been great at the Manor until she had managed to get herself bitten by a werewolf one night when she had been wandering the grounds after dark, her parents shown Lana their true colours, while appearing to love their child unconditionally, they had abandoned her, left her at an orphanage with no warnings to the muggle administrators. After all who would willingly take in a monster, no precautions taken for the full moon, left her there without a second thought, left her there to murder everyone and everything within her range, left her there to be disposed of when she offered proof that she was a dangerous beast in need of disposal, Remus had never forgiven them for that, in fact he rarely spared them a glance when passing them at the Ministry and even then it was to glare at them. James had tried to get them fired but unfortunately politics had gotten in the way and they had managed to keep their prominent positions at the Ministry, but they had not gotten off without a severe fine.

It was lucky indeed that Lana as a pure-blood witch who had heard bedtime stories about all manner of dark dangerous creatures had heard stories about 'evil werewolves' and though only six had understood that that was what she now was, a dark creature and understood the basic the dangers of being a werewolf in human company especially on the night of the full moon when she 'turned into the wolfie me', how she had understood this at the tender age of six this still baffled Remus to this day, he didn't think he would have been able to but Lana had, Lana had run away before she could do any damage to the human population, human muggle population, her parents had left her in a muggle orphanage stating later when he had caught up with them that if their daughter had to be a monster she could at least remove some of that muggle filth from their world. Lana however had known, Lana did not want to become anymore of a 'monster' than she already was, she had run away into the woods nearby, where she had somehow survived three weeks alone and gotten herself a long way into the wilderness. 

Remus had found her when he went wondering in the woods, in wolf form in perfect control due to the wolfsbane potion; he had been horrified when he had found the young werewolf cub in the forest, even more horrified when he noticed how thin she was, at first she had been distrustful, but soon when she realised he was like her she had calmed down.

That night he had made a rather interesting discovery, the wolfsbane, it seemed only removed the wolf's violent tendencies the maternal/paternal instincts remained intact. He had taken the little werewolf pup in his mouth and taken her back to his cabin, Lana not making the slightest protest to stop him.

That had been three years ago, now nine Lana now only had another two years before she could got to Hogwarts, gone were the days it was a revolutionary thing for werewolves to attend the school, if there was a werewolf found young enough to go, it would be able to go, no questions asked.

And so it was that Remus found himself quite startled when a small barn owl, obviously very young just old enough to carry letters swooping down on his breakfast table, it was not an unusual occurrence for Remus to receive owls, it was however very rare for one to appear on his breakfast table and knock down the vase full of daisies Lana had brought in yesterday. It was also not a regular occurrence for owls to appear quite this early, the earliest he had every received an owl was just after breakfast, Hogwarts time, certainly not just after dawn.

His work at the Ministry though important was never very urgent, more political then practical, helping bring down prejudices built over many generations. Thus Remus found himself very curious as to just who would write to him at this time in the morning, Remus after reading the letter was just as shocked as Sirius had been, he however did not sit there and gape, Remus made his way towards his extensive library, determined to find out whether this was possible or not.

And when Lana came down to breakfast and read the note she knew exactly where Remus was, when in doubt look in the library after all, calmly she buttered her toast and settled down to breakfast, comfortable with the fact that her dad would find the answer he was looking for and excited about meeting the great Harry Potter all grown up that she had heard Sirius and Remus talking about in hushed tones when they thought she wasn't listening.


	7. The PotterSnape Peace Treaty

J

Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 15

The Potter/Snape Peace Treaty

Sirius arrived in the Great Hall at exactly the same time as Harry did, after about a full second of staring the well built, well fed, Sirius Black launched himself on his Godson.

You may think that eighteen years is a long time that they would all be over their grief for Harry by now, but that wasn't the case, Harry was special. Harry was Lily and James's son, he had been cute as a button, an adorable child born into a world full of death and chaos, he had been the beacon of hope for their little group of friends, whenever anyone was feeling down they would go play with Harry and come out feeling hopeful again, he was their bright shining light, their hope for the future, and they often wondered aloud to each other whether the loss of Harry was worth the destruction of Voldemort.

It was selfish, but they didn't care, they had not celebrated the destruction of Voldemort like the rest of the wizarding world, they had mourned the loss of Harry, in their grief for their lost star they could not celebrate the demise of the evil wizard they had been combating for the majority of their lives, was it really worth the loss of Harry they often asked and selfish as it was the answer alternated between yes and no, with no being the most common answer.

Harry for his part was shocked, even though this was not the first time his slightly rabid mutt of a godfather had launched a surprise attack on him he had never really accustomed himself to it, Sirius had always been unexpectedly good at giving bear hugs, tight enough to squeeze the life out of a person, could give Hagrid a run for his money actually, and given Hagrids heritage that was quite an achievement. 

Harry was in a daze, he knew Sirius was here, he knew he would be seeing him, but he wasn't sure he was ready for this. The pain of Sirius's death was still very raw; he had never really gotten over Sirius's death, Sirius was his father figure, he had kept him together though his training and the war emotionally, Sirius had kept him from going insane.

And now he was here, at Hogwarts, he knew his Sirius was gone, the one he had known as well as circumstances would allow, but he was still Sirius, and thus they must be a little similar at least.

Releasing him Harry found himself pushed gently back and examined by Sirius, "No doubt about it, your definitely a Potter." He said before pulling him back into a hug, Harry still staring off into space trying to order his thoughts.

Albus decided to interrupt them, after all from what he had been shown of Harry he didn't think he would appreciate the entire Great Hall watching one of his rare moments of weakness, after all he couldn't have the students thinking he was weak, he would never survive the first lesson, which reminded him, he would have to have a little chat to Harry about the man-eating horrible students that fed on weaknesses displayed before them, can't have him going into these things with confidence after all, confidence is only a feeling you have before you fully understand the situation.

Coughing lightly and only managing to gain Sirius's partial attention and Harry's dazed glance he gestured at the student body which was currently staring at the pair with interest. After all it wasn't everyday your old Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher decided to come in and attack your new one, even though they hadn't had a class with him yet they had a feeling that they were going to like this teacher, he just had an air about him, they had a feeling they were going to learn a lot from Professor Potter, and to a lesser extent Professor Granger. They had all love Professor Black but he just didn't seem to have the knowledge or experience that these other worldly new Professors did. Really who would you prefer, someone cool like Professor Black, or someone cool, young, handsome, experienced who knew how to handle all sorts of weapons and beat an Unspeakable without even using a WAND!

It was safe to assume that the student population, even the Slytherins were looking forward to lessons with Professor Potter, even though they would never admit it.

Sirius turned and looked at their watching audience before giving a short bow and sitting on a chair towards the edge of the Head Table, careful NOT to sit directly next to Snape.

Harry blushed at the sight of the entire school staring at the display his Godfather had just caused and rushed to his seat, right next to Sirius unfortunately it just so happened it was also right Snape, but this wouldn't be a problem, so long as he ignored Snape Snape would ignore him, hopefully.

Sirius wasted no time jumping right into the interrogation.

"So what house were you in?"

"Gryffindor"

"Thank god you weren't a slimy greasy grovelling Slytherin"

"There's nothing wrong with Slytherins, Snape either for that matter"

Sirius looked at him with an odd look on his face, "Yeah nothing except their all evil, and if your so fond of Snape how come you haven't said a word to him all day."

"Slytherins are not evil, they're just not stupid enough to openly support the light, and many of our most important allies were from or in Slytherin. And I haven't talked to Snape because I haven't had a reason to and he hates it when I talk to him without a reason and that wasn't until after the Potter/Snape peace treaty."

"The Potter/Snape peace treaty?" he now had the attention of practically everyone in the room, including Snape who was muttering under his breath that he would never agree to anything with a Potter.

"Oh yes, Albus was not impressed by our constant pranking and made us sign a peace treaty, said it was bad for morale or some such nonsense." Harry was enjoying himself for one of the first times since landing here, he was beginning to feel comfortable and fit in, he still hadn't had a real conversation with his parents yet but now that he was starting to settle in he was going to try to remedy that situation.

"And what exactly did this peace treaty entail?" asked Snape arching an aristocratic eyebrow.

"Um well the treaty stated that, Harry Potter and Severus Snape in light of recent events will each sign this treaty, this treaty will ensure that Severus Snape and Harry Potter will work together in relative peace and harmony (I don't expect miracles). Name Calling and playing of pranks is prohibited until such a time as the others demise or the end of the war, contact between the parties will remain at a minimum and should be restricted to business only. Violation of this treaty will result in the most horrible and severe punishment in existence." 

"And then there was: Amendment: Baiting of the other party is also prohibited. That bit was added after a particularly nasty Order meeting in which we subtly insulted each other without name calling for the entire meeting trying to get the other to hex you first."

"Interesting. And what punishment would be so terrible to keep us from breaking this treaty?" Snape asked in his usual drawling tone, trying to cover up his interest in the conversation

"Oh, well, umm, if the treaty was broken Albus was going to put a bonding spell on us and we would be unable to leave each others company for an unspecified amount of time," Harry suddenly looked scared_ "Please don't give this Albus ideas" he added in a whisper to Sirius_ "He's going to be bad enough as it is."_ Snape was straining to try to hear what they were saying, failing miserably._

"Don't think I am going to sign the agreement here, I already have too many plans for you my dear Potions Master." Harry added with an evil smirk, loud enough that the entire Head Table heard wondering what they had been talking about.

James who was close enough to hear bits and pieces smiled from behind his glass while Sirius looked like he had just won the lottery, his son was a true Marauder, or at least he would be with a little training and guidance, after all one of the crucial factors involved in being a Marauder was a healthy love of Snape torture, even if he wasn't really evil he was still Snape and that made him a very ripe target, really who could resist with all that greasy hair.

Soon all the teachers with classes filed out signalling to the students dallying to hurry up and James, Lily, Harry, Hermione and Sirius were left alone at the table.

"Err, we should probably leave," said Harry, already having spotted more than one house elf waiting to come in and clear the Great Hall.

"Why should we move?" asked Sirius "I'm perfectly comfortable here, I never knew the teachers were living in such luxury while we suffered away down at the house tables. Even when I taught here before they weren't this comfortable, complained heaps to Dumbledore about it but he always just smiled at me saying I would get accustomed to it with time, hey do you think Albus took the charms off my chair, I'm gonna have to have a little chat with him later on I think."

It was true the teachers chairs at the High Table were extremely comfortable despite not looking like much, they probably had all sorts of charms on them to make them feel like lounge chairs while looking like stiff wooden things, lest the children suspect them. 

"Well we should move because the House Elves want to come in here and clean up the Hall" Harry whispered as low as he could to his godfather 

"House Elves!" Sirius fairly roared not recognising the imminent danger of mentioning them in front of Hermione "Why should we move just because of House Elves!"

Harry cowered down in his seat, this would not be pretty.

Hermione was suddenly reminded of one of her favourite pet projects before the war and wasted about a second of good yelling time to give a mental smile as she thought of starting up S.P.E.W. anyway as I said she wasted only a second before tearing into her speech, she may have been forced to abandon her pet project during the war due to the need to focus on other matters but she was not Hermione Granger for nothing, she had a perfect memory for these things and proceeded to lecture Sirius and effectively everyone else in the room about the horrid way people treat house elves and how they should be more grateful and give them holidays and sick leave and of course fair pay and equal to wizard rights.

Needless to say Sirius kept his mouth shut and everyone else nodded their heads in the appropriate places hoping to divert the teenagers wrath from themselves.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sitting comfortably in the teachers lounge, in the teachers lounge as a teacher was not something Harry had ever imagined, Hermione he could see as a teacher of children, a teacher at Hogwarts, it was probably one of her schoolgirl aspirations to be just like McGonagall before she agreed to take part in her training, before she changed her destiny like so many others to fit in with the times. But he had never ever in his wildest dreams seen himself as a teacher, not him, he was more of an action person than a teacher person, but here he was, and with the oddest group of people, come to think of it he would have never imagined this, if in fact if he had imagined this he would have apparated himself straight to St Mungos and admitted himself to the mental ward, he could see himself now sitting in a whitewashed room staring at the wall in a straightjacket, idly he wondered whether wizard hospitals had straightjackets or whether they had other methods for keeping prisoners in line. 

Hermione had calmed herself down since her little tirade in the Great Hall but was still mulling over the possibilities of restarting S.P.E.W. even though here it was extremely likely it had never existed in the first place. 

At first it was extremely awkward, the walk to the teachers lounge had been a silent one, no one really knowing what to say, especially Lily and James, not only had they just gotten a son back, a son who they had no idea what to say to, how to start a conversation with but they would also have to within the next few weeks announce Lily's pregnancy, something they were not sure how Harry would take to the news. Quite frankly they were not sure how Harry would take anything, they had barely had the chance to speak with him since he had arrived save for the initial meeting and mealtimes. They knew the gist of what Harry was like but they did not really know HIM, and they desperately wanted to they just weren't sure how to go about it.

Sirius ever shameless of course came to the rescue and broke the tension.

He was bouncing in his seat in anticipation; after all why bother with life stories when you could share stories and reminisce about tormenting Snape, something Mel had made him cut down on, in her presence at least.

"So Harry what did you do to Snape? Come on please tell me I need to know! Its very important!" Sirius burst out with all his dramatically brilliant enthusiasm.

Harry smirked at Sirius knowing perfectly well the bounty he held over his head, 

"I dunno maybe I shouldn't tell you, might make you jealous" with another smirk. He knew they would. His pranks were brilliant everyone who had seen them knew that, even Hermione who generally disapproved of pranks would admit that Harry's pranks were spectacular.

Lily and Hermione turned away from the 'boys' as they started a conversation which in all likelihood would solely based on past pranks and their effects on Snape, although it broke the tension in the room for Lily and Hermione it was not their favourite topic and definitely did not inspire them as much as it did the boys. Instead Lily spent her time chatting with Hermione about Harry and their lives, finding out more about her son.

"You do know who you are talking to right? Right? You are talking to Padfoot and Prongs, by far the best of the timeless Marauders, nothing could live up to our mischief making records!"

"Oh then tell me what was your best Snape related prank?"

Harry had not pulled his first non-purpose related prank until the middle of his fifth year, four months into his training when he was forced to begin working with Snape, fed up with the scathing comments and having an infinite well of highly adaptable spells at his disposal Harry had proved himself as someone you DID not mess with unless you wanted to find yourself utterly humiliated, when Snape had retaliated he had proven himself a worthy opponent however Harry's pranks had far more appeal because no one but a close few even knew he was in the castle, Snape however was still keeping up appearances and going to the Great Hall for his meals.

Thus who would be more effective in the art of embarrassment, Harry whose presence in the castle was known to so few and was not seen out of his quarters and the training area the Headmaster had set up in his tower or Snape who was in the Great Hall for every meal and had the entire school population to watch as he performed countless embarrassing acts that the Weasley twins took great pleasure in duplicating the effects of for their joke shop.  

And the best bit, although it did not help him much now was that the Creevy brothers had taken pictures, which sold for a huge profit and that Ron had continuously owled to him.

It had been hard living in the same castle as his friends and knowing that they neither knew nor could find out that he was there and that he was lying to his friends albeit for safety purposes but it was still lying.

In those days he had been forced to tell them that he was being trained by an alliance of powerful wizards to prepare for the upcoming war, which although true was misleading.

Hermione had been the nest to join in the program after Harry's extensive success, Hermione's version of the program was toned down a lot, although it was designed to either make or break the wizard the course was specialized to fit with the power level of the person taking it, it would take them beyond their limits but only if they could handle it, if not you died from an overload of power, there was no backing out once you were in, that was a fact stressed before you agreed to the training.

Hermione had joined the course six months after he had started and it had come as a huge relief to have someone to talk to again who was not one of his teachers, although he had become very close to Albus it was just not the same as having someone your own age who knew you well to talk to.

While all these memories flicked though his head he happily listened to the chatter between Sirius and James who were arguing about what their best Snape prank had been.

He wondered what their reaction would be when he revealed some of his best Snape pranks, the other Sirius had always said that his pranks were a miracle, had no idea how he could pull such dazzling pranks off, personally he thought it was the spells he used, though more complex than the standard pranks and were not designed to be used as pranks Harry mainly used a combination of Offensive and Defensive spells with safety precautions and just a dash of the normal pranking spells. It was a lot more complicated to set up but also a lot more spectacular.

Soon enough James and Sirius had come up with a prank they both agreed was their best, well their best Snape related prank.

"OK we got it." They said in perfect unison

Harry smiled, "Ok tell me."

"Ok this one time we had Snape bow down everytime he saw Professor McGonagall and when she asked him to look at her when he was talking he confessed his undying love for her and followed her around presenting her with flowers and serenades, in front of the whole school of course, we got into a lot of trouble for it because the spell we used was pretty similar to the Imperious Curse which at the time was not as great an offense as it is today but it was still pretty bad, anyway beat that!" said Sirius

"OK then… well I had Snape see all the students and the teachers in the school as ghosts and whenever someone would leave the room he would see them going through the walls, of course he also saw himself as transperant and tried to walk though a wall, of course as he was not really a ghost it didn't work, then I made an illusion so it looked and felt like there was no way out of the room, he would have been stranded there until the next day if Albus hadn't needed a potion brewed, the illusion wouldn't lift until someone else entered the room."

"Prongs how did you survive this kid growing up, he's a pranking genius! The house would have been in tatters."

"I didn't" James said disappointed he could not be there for his son, even if it wasn't really him, it was another him, the same as him.

"What do you mean you didn't, you don't mean? Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to mention it, so where did you live, with me? Of course that would explain your mastery of pranks growing up with me as a guide."

"No I didn't live with you I lived with Lily's sister Petunia and her husband Vernon, and their son Dudley."

"So if Lily and James were dead and you lived with your relatives how'd you know me?"

"Simple Sirius you were quite famous in our world" he couldn't resist it would be too easy

"So I was famous in your world? I always wanted to be famous"

"Sure you were famous, first you were famous for betraying my parents, even though you didn't, then you were famous for escaping Azkaban and trying to kill me, then for being proved innocent and for the most individual fighting style in the Dark Wars, you even had your own chocolate frog card."

"I was on a chocolate frog card? I wanna see, I wanna see!" trust Sirius to look on the bright side of everything, the most important information there was of COURSE the chocolate frog card.

"Don't get too excited I've had a chocolate frog card since I was one." He put on his most condescending Slytherin voice

"And seeing the card would prove a little difficult, It involves a little thing called time and space." Harry replied exasperatedly talking to Sirius was sometimes like talking to a little kid, he just didn't understand the way the world worked, he probably did, and he just didn't act like it.

Sirius pouted, "No Fair, I finally get famous and I can't even enjoy it."

"Sorry Sirius, nothing I can do, the only way I can see that you can get on a chocolate frog card is either you get yourself famous or bribe the chocolate frog company, take your pick"

Hermione Anne Granger without a doubt the most brilliant witch her age, very successful researcher of anything and everything magical stood outside the stone gargoyle that guarded the Headmasters office, she had been there barely a second before the password was given and she was admitted entrance, this in itself was an extremely strange occurrence after all this was Albus Dumbledore's office generally only the heads of houses had the Headmasters password, for emergencies, he would have had them guessing too if he could.

Before long she had made her way up the spiral steps and was at the door to the Headmasters office, once again she was seized with curiosity as to what the Headmaster could possibly want, or need that would require her presence. She lifted her hand and knocked on the door.

At school she had always kept to herself earning herself a reputation as a bookworm, she avoided human contact as much as possible except with her teachers and adults who she respected, her early treatment from fellow Gryffindors, especially one Ronald Weasley had made her withdraw so far into herself that many wondered how she had become a Gryffindor in the first place, what they didn't realise was that she was strong, she was strong enough to survive without their help, sure at times she had wanted what they had, the closeness of friendship, to be part of a group but in the end she knew that when they left school, they would be on their own and that she would be ready for that while they, they who wasted their time on Quidditch and refrained from doing their homework because they had a date with that cute Ravenclaw would be doomed to failure, she would not, she would be successful.

 The Headmaster almost immediately ushered her in, obviously expecting her, sitting her down opposite her.

"Hermione, so glad you could make it, now we have had a rather extraordinary event occur here just a few days ago and I saw fit that you be informed."

AN: OK I'm going to leave it there, over 4,000 words, this is not the second part of the other chapter I was going to have but I realised I wanted to get some other stuff done before I could write that chapter it would have had to be a really really long chapter to get where it had to go, so anyway LMK what you think. 


	8. Hermione meet Hermione & Pressing Matter...

J

Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 16

Hermione meet Hermione and Pressing Matters

"Informed Professor, what would I possibly need to be informed of?" asked Hermione genuinely curious as to the answer; perhaps the Headmaster needed her expertise on this occurrence? No not likely the Headmaster was still light years ahead of her in the intellectual department but he might need a second opinion? No that wasn't likely either she knew for a fact that he always went to Professor McGonagall when he needed a second opinion, not to mention that there was a veritable sea of more experienced (though probably not more intelligent) witches and wizards out there in the hidden wizarding world.

The only acceptable solution she could come to was that this occurrence, whatever it was was somehow connected to her.

This however did not help her much as she had no idea what at the school could possible connected to her, let alone strange occurrences.

"It seems Ms Granger that we have received some visitors, permanent it seems from another world."

Hermione sat there blank for a few seconds before her brain started working at a thousand times its usual rate, which was in itself quite fast, dragging up everything she had ever learned on Alternate Universe theories and recorded travel between worlds. The records stated that people had left this world but they had never returned, could it be possible, yes maybe she wasn't sure but what was really getting to her was that she still didn't know, fascinating as the subject was how this related to her.

Hermione sat there with a confused look on her face before she asked the question that had been plaguing her since she had received the letter from that annoying owl that had bit her.

"Sir, what does this have to do with me?" she asked, she knew it sounded a bit rude the way she said it but she was impatient for the answer. She probably shouldn't have been so rude to the man who had allowed her an extra year of study but she felt she needed to know, before she went insane theorizing on the possibilities.

"Ah Ms Granger it seems that one of the visitors is a counterpart to yourself."

To say she was shocked was an understatement, definitely an understatement.

  
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Remus Lupin had buried himself in his extensive library, he was not a rich man, but neither was he poor, he did however pride himself in having an extremely extensive library, almost to the standards of Hogwarts filled with books on every subject you could possibly want information on, and even some you don't.

But for all that, it seemed his library did not contain ANY information on Alternate Universes not even theories, he knew there were books on the subject, he had skimmed them during his own Hogwarts education but it seemed that he would not find any answers to his questions here, it was the first time that his own personal library had failed to produce the information he required.

Sighing in resignation Remus made his way out of the library and was surprised by the clock, he had been in there for HOURS, in fact it was nearly lunch time, and sighing again he began to make peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.

The Lupin cottage was just that a cottage, however this cottage was particularly special to Remus, due to lack of funds and not wanting to be traced during Voldemort's reign, Remus had built himself this cottage the muggle way, no magic used whatsoever, and he had done it all by himself, no outside help.

That did have its disadvantages of course, anything that was wrong with the house was his fault, it had limits as to the amount it could be expanded by magic (could only be expanded temporarily) and it was not very large, the ground floor consisted of only the kitchen, the library & Remus's bedroom, the stairs and the upper floor had not been added until Lana had arrived.

Remus was at a loss as to what to do, he didn't want to get his hopes up only to have them dashed yet again, it had happened before, and he needed to know whether or not this was really possible before he could truly believe that Harry was really Harry. The impostor Harry's had hurt everyone and he was determined not to let it happen again. Either he had to prove that travel between universes was impossible or he had to find proof that it was. Either way he knew he had to do one thing.

He had to go to Hogwarts.

"A WHAT?" Hermione practically shouted when she snapped back into her senses, of all the things she might have been prepared for that wasn't it. She wasn't sure how she was meant to react to this, it wasn't everyday that you were told a counterpart of yourself travelled here from another world. She was familiar with the theories of course at least those published theories, but none of the theories had been proven had they? Well of course if anyone was to find a way to travel across universes it would be her, she was a genius was she not?

To tell the truth she was a little jealous of this other version of herself, she was obviously smarter than herself. But then again maybe she could learn something from her… she was after all Hermione Granger and she never passed up an opportunity to study, not to mention the fact she would now HAVE to study alternate dimensions… she had to prove she was just as good, if not better than her other self.

Remus Lupin having come to his conclusion set about making plans, he unlike some (Sirius Black) would not go rushing up to the castle on a whim, and he would be prepared.

Chatting with his daughter over lunch Remus let slip that they might be going to visit Hogwarts soon, needless to say Lana was excited, she had wanted to go visit Hogwarts for a long time now, her Dad and his friends told such cool stories about it, even if Uncle James did say that the Headmaster was evil and you should stay away from him as much as possible, anyway she was Lana Lupin nothing could hurt her not even evil Headmasters who made your loved ones disappear if you got to close to them, damned if she was going to let him scare her away from the castle.

She was soo excited she had never even thought of the possibility of getting to go to Hogwarts before she started there in two years time, with a squeal she quickly ran up stairs to decide on what robes she would wear.

Remus sighed, maybe he should have waited until he knew for sure they were going before he went and got her hopes up, she didn't take disappointment well.

Sighing again Remus got up from his chair and made his way to the fireplace, he had a firecall to Hogwarts to make.

Minerva McGonagall was in her office when the firecall came, they were not unusual around this time, this was the time allotted to her to perform her duties as Deputy Headmistress. 

She was quite surprised however at just who was calling her, though notably the most mature of the Marauders if you could ever truly call the Marauders mature she had never expected that one of them would ever call and check in before coming to the castle, but that is exactly what he did, and at the proper time too, maybe all that time she had spent trying to make them behave had rubbed off after all, on at least one of them at least.

She was in a jubilant mood, all the work she had put into the Marauders hadn't been for nothing, in fact she was so happy with her success that she would begin an even tighter campaign to control the students in the coming weeks, she may have failed with the majority of the Marauders and the Weasley Twins but her work was doing some good.

If the students ever found out that her behaviour had been all because one former student had shown common courtesy and contacted the castle before his arrival, they probably would have laughed, but if they ever found out that the reason Courtney Chiders and Thomas McNally had been caught in greenhouse three and was the result of Gryffindor House's loss of over two hundred points he would likely have been murdered on the spot.

Thus it was probably a good idea that nobody would ever know, aside from Albus of course that he would be/was the reason for her reign of interfering and harsh punishments, in fact if Remus had known the horror he would create in one little so-called innocent firecall he probably wouldn't have called at all…

Unspeakable Gavin Oldfield was licking his wounds so to speak, he was brooding in his room. This was not something the prideful elite was used to, defeat, he was not bitter about his defeat at the hands of a mere child with no magical weapons, no, Gavin was realizing something he had never even considered before and he had the young Harry Potter to thank for it.

How many times could he have been beaten by someone skilled in muggle combat, how many times could he have died if the enemy had known his weakness, and finally how could he, now that he had found this new weakness both in himself and others exploit it in order to save the lives of the public.

 He knew what he would have to do as soon as he got back, and had it been anybody else they may not have been so keen to do it, but Gavin Oldfield was a veteran and if something as simple as this could help save the lives of the upcoming generation of officers, if they could come out of their service duties even slightly less worse for wear than he would than he would gladly take a little humiliation to do it.

And with that Harry Potter began to change the tides of the wizarding world, little by little is the way the world changes, and little by little it was.

Remus called up the stairs to Lana, he was surprised to be going to Hogwarts so soon, in fact he had not expected to be going for a few weeks at most and at least not for a few days, but Minerva had surprised him when he had asked for permission to enter Hogwarts grounds as soon as it was convenient that she had answered she would be expecting him in a few hours.

"Lana, pack your things we're leaving for Hogwarts and we'll probably be there for awhile, there's a trunk you can use in the attic."

"What!" she yelled back, "We're leaving NOW!?"

Remus smiled, he knew his little girl, she had likely spent every second deciding on which outfit would suitably impress her future Professors, but despite that he knew she would be no closer to finding the perfect outfit then she was the second she found out.

Lana was not a ditz, far from it, but she did like to make good impressions on people, especially first impressions, even though the legislation was and had been changed relating to werewolves a lot of people still stuck to old prejudices and he knew she had before and likely would be again stung by society's prejudices towards HER kind.

Remus walked up the stairs to Lana's room, for someone so obsessed with her appearance and what robes she was going to wear her room was incredibly messy, in fact if you showed someone who had only seen Lana's 'impress mode' her room they likely would not believe the room belonged to the same person, in a way that was true Lana tended to hide herself behind the act to protect herself from the blatant discrimination she was forced to tolerate, it was easier for her to deal with the pain of rejection if she believed that people were not really rejecting HER, just the image she projected.

"Lana" he said, "Laaaanna" he said a little louder than his usual calm voice.

She stopped, turned, and stared it was not NORMAL for her dad to raise his voice, it just wasn't in his nature he had far more subtle means of keeping control, pranks and subtle manipulation were Remus Lupin's trademark.

When she said subtle manipulation she meant, "Lana I can't seem to find some information in the library could you please come help me find it?" and then he would give her some bogus story about something in particular he was looking for, at first she had thought he REALLY needed help, that was until she noticed the smirks of triumph he got on his face every time he thought to she wasn't looking, it was all a ploy of course aimed at getting her to read and understand the spell books before she even got to Hogwarts.

Anyway back to the topic at hand her dad had just told her they were leaving NOW, not tomorrow not next week NOW today and she hadn't even decided what robes would make the best impression, maybe she should wear muggle clothes? She opened her mouth to complain about the short notice but her dad cut her off.

"Lana just chuck some clothes into your trunk and wear some plain black robes anything else and you'll stand out too much and you wouldn't like that now would you?"

Lana looked positively terrified at the possibility of looking out of place, not being able to blend into the crowd, granted at Hogwarts she probably wouldn't blend into the crowd too well anyway being as short as she was but she could try!

Deciding her dad's advice would probably be the best way to go she proceeded to throw anything and everything she could fit in her trunk as fast as werewolfly possible, which was pretty fast but very untidy.

How her dad managed it she would never know but he was downstairs, packed and waiting by the time she was finished and helped her carry her trunk down the stairs, not that she couldn't do it easily on her own, she was a werewolf after all but it was the gesture that counted…

After Hermione calmed down Headmaster Dumbledore went off to fetch the second much more laid back Hermione, not to mention more powerful.

Hermione the Genius, brilliant researcher just out of Hogwarts meanwhile sat calmly in her seat whilst her mind raced a hundred miles a minute, the shrewd thoughts flying through her head were worthy of a seventh year Slytherin. No that you could blame her, her own experience in Gryffindor rivalled that of a Slytherin, even worse because she had no allies in her housemates, she had been completely alone ridiculed by both her 'enemies' which included anyone who wasn't her or her teachers. Upon leaving school after begging for an extra year she had immediately set out to make her mark, to create and discover knowledge long lost or never before thought of, her mission was to make all those who had ridiculed her jealous to make them regret all the teasing and ridicule she had been put through for all those years, especially that obnoxious Ron Weasley! He was such an egotistic jerk who only thought of himself and who had taken great pleasure in the torment of Hermione, she was glad of his absence in her final year.

As the Headmaster walked down the corridor towards the rooms that Harry and Hermione had announced would be their Defence Classrooms he wondered at how well Hermione had taken the news, he certainly would not have taken the news as well as she had. To be honest he had not been sure what he had been expecting from the former Gryffindor when he announced this news to her, throughout her schooling he had always thought of her as more of a Ravenclaw then anything else, yet perhaps her courage was just well hidden, there must after all have been a reason the Sorting Hat had placed her where she had been placed. 

Dumbledore reached the Defence Classrooms and was quite amused at the inscription on the classroom door he proceeded down the hall to Harry and Hermione's office, their project for today, or so they had told him, however he wondered whether or not the pair had found the time to redecorate the rather dusty and old fashioned office, and if they had managed to escape the company of Lily and James or for that matter Sirius Black.

Albus smiled as he got to the door, it was obvious from the amount of laughter coming out of the room that someone, in fact several someone's were inside the room.

Deciding that no one would notice if he knocked the esteemed Headmaster quietly made his way into the room, unfortunately for him the room had already been programmed to well… punish intruders who entered with out asking or knocking as the case may be.

It stood to reason that a room being made over by two former Marauders, one son of a Marauder two lovely ladies in love with them would have firstly, before anything else pranked the door.

Thus Albus found himself with a quite distinctive new hair colour, the formerly distinctive snow white beard and hair of one Albus Dumbledore was now canary yellow with bright pink streaks. Not a very imaginative prank they would admit but the prank was not really the purpose, it was the identification of the intruder that mattered and the yellow hair with pink streaks that would not come out for a whole week was quite a distinctive trait, and something that could not easily be covered up.

The room itself was quite comfortable looking, not to mention the fact it would be quite stylish, however the room did not really look like an office, in fact there were several factors that made the room look rather different from the typical office more like a common room with a couple of lovely mahogany desks squeezed into the corner.

Well you might think a room with mahogany furniture, a bookshelf full of Dark Arts and Defence books and gorgeous royal red and gold furniture was quite a nicely furnished place right? Wrong in fact the only thing wrong with the room was the colours of the walls, all the walls were different fluro colours. He began to question the sanity of his new Defence teachers; maybe he had missed something that the other Albus had shared with him, like a little visit to the Saint Mungos Mental Ward perhaps? Then again this was a Marauders son with a deprived childhood, Lily had no doubt been corrupted by many long years of marriage to James, even if the last twenty or so years had not been sunshine and roses, but Ms. Granger should know better, she probably did, really though, he could not bring himself to deprive any of them the little fun they had, even at the expense of his beard, he hoped they had a way to reverse it, which once again they probably did but it was unlikely they would tell it to him, and knowing the people who had set it it probably wouldn't be found in any book either.

It looked like he was going to be stuck with strange hair for awhile because nothing involving the Marauders EVER wore off quickly, results of their pranks tended to linger for days, weeks, occasionally months and in the case of the former teachers lounge, years.

In any case he was getting sidetracked, he had come here for a particular purpose, and it had not been to get a hair dye.

"I would ask how long this," he said motioning towards his beard "is going to last, however I have a rather pressing matter to attend to, if I could just borrow Hermione for a time I would appreciate it." 

"Sure Professor, what's the problem?" Hermione came forward an started walking out the door, I could see Harry dithering wondering whether or not he should come with her, whether for her support or out of his own curiosity, he shrugged either he had beaten his own curiousity over the head with a club or he decided whatever it was Hermione could handle it by herself.

In fact the reluctance was bred in from years of war, never knowing when someone left a room whether or not it would be the last time you would see them, close friends stuck together and rarely left each others company. It was hard overriding years of habit, even when you knew it was absolutely safe, the pair of them would probably have the 'paranoia problem' for years to come. Still it would be nice to spend sometime alone with his parents and Sirius, at least that was what he was thinking until he saw the looks on the evil grins on their faces.

"So Harry, have you ever heard of a little thing called the Talk?"

"Isn't it a bit late for that? I mean I'm nineteen!"

"Better late than never." You could tell by the look on James' face that this was something he had been looking forward to for a long time, a long long time.

Remus found himself arriving in a flurry of robes, which was quite surprising for the usually very elegant werewolf, years of self-discipline ingrained into his very being, trying to fit in.

It had been many years since he had fell rather than 'stepped' out of a fireplace, in fact this entire trip was entirely out of the ordinary for Remus who was rarely called into work for emergencies, planned holidays and appointments religiously and was only somewhat unpredictable when it came to his friends and home life, his life had always been regulated around the full moon, an unscheduled visit to Hogwarts, with his daughter to visit and investigate his best friends son from another universe was a quite random occurrence.

Harry.

It was so hard to believe; just when they all thought they were past the pain another impersonator would show up, desperation made them give them a chance when they knew it was pointless, when they knew he was gone.

He absently wondered what he had said or done to convince his friends he was genuine, that he was different from all the rest, they had all been desensitised to this, or so he had thought.

Granted he would give them that none of the others had approached the matter from this angle before, but it was just so hard to believe, so hard to just chuck off all those years of cautiousness in a moment and embrace what could quite possibly be yet another impostor.

 Damn, he should NOT have stood directly in front of the fire, normally he would have made Lana go first, however in this particular circumstance he decided it would be best if he went first, probably not the best decision in his life as if she got lost in the floo system somewhere he would not have a clue as to where to find her, but he needn't have worried because Lana was today a better floo traveller than he was and came pretty much directly after him.

Unfortunately both she and her trunk slammed right into him exiting the fireplace. 

Hermione entered the office with the Headmaster and…blinked, damn stupid Albus and his damn stupid surprises, he didn't even WARN me I was about to meet myself the sneaky old cunning should-have-been-Slytherin really really stupid Headmaster if I had been just twenty years older I just might be prone to a heart attack, standing in front of me was me, the me that I could have been if not for the war, if not for Harry.

There she was right in front of me, glad in the most boring clothes imaginable, sure they were fine for comfort and even I would wear them every once in a while but just by the way she wore them, the way I wore them you could say, that she wore these types of clothes everyday, her skin was incredibly pale and it was obvious that she spent a lot of time inside and her hair, her hair was a mess, a barely manageable tangle of hair which wasn't given the care it needed, even I in the peak of the war managed to maintain better hair than that. But that was necessary that was to keep up moral.

And I found myself incredibly glad, all the blood, all the tears all the losses to me were finally justified, they turned me into the person I am, and turned me away for the lonely scholarly life I could have had, and I was glad and I vow to myself right now that I will do whatever is possible to help my counterpart turn her life around as well.

Scholarly Hermione was if anything more shocked by her counterpart, dressed entirely in black she looked barely a thing like herself save her features, she was well toned, very pretty in her own way and not a bit self conscious.

Hermione the self conscious watched as the black clad other version of herself stepped forward, "Hi, I'm Hermione, guess you already figured that out but anyway." She offered her hand and we shook, I couldn't help but notice how calloused her hands were compared to mine, she had definitely not spend years in a library like me, she was a lot different, I just had to figure out how and why.

"Guess you already knew that though huh?" she asked trying to sound as cheery as possible, to tell the truth the silent scrutenization her counterpart was giving her was unnerving she felt as though the scholar wanted to dissect her with a very blunt scalpel to study her like a newly discovered specimen of plant, pity that this little plant had a nasty little bite and did NOT want to be studied.

This was very awkward, what do you say to yourself, even if it isn't an exact copy of you?

It had been several days since the arrival of Harry and 'Mione in this world, they had taken to calling Hermione 'Mione to save confusion between the two, Harry had kept his name in absence of a live counterpart. The castle had not had this many guests in years, In fact the last date the castle had had more occupants who did not work or go to school here was in 1843 when there was an influx of magical immigrants after the destruction of Tasper an entirely wizarding village in the mountain ranges behind Hogwarts, a magical storm had ravaged the town, no magic could be cast during the course of the storm lest they fuel its fury, many had died and many had been injured but still more had been left homeless and Tasper once a prominent wizarding village was never rebuilt.

The guests of the castle were as follows, Hermione Granger researcher extraordinaire, rather rude due to lack of human contact throughout her teenage years. Not great company and currently spending a large amount of time in the Hogwarts library, much to the annoyance of her counterpart. She began becoming rude and arrogant as soon as she found out that 'Mione had not been the one who brought them to this world before locking, well maybe not locking but taking up permanent residence in the library and making biting comments to her counterpart every time she tried to drag her out of the library, needless to say 'Mione was not having much luck on turning her counterparts life around. 

Remus Lupin, slightly distrustful also spending a lot of time in the library, former Marauder by the name of Moony, probably researching to make sure that our story is genuine and that we are not Dark Wizards trying to get close to his friends. More social than Hermione's counterpart and a lot happier than his counterpart, this could be accredited to the increased werewolf rights in this world that we briefly heard about.

Lana Lupin slightly shy adopted daughter of Remus Lupin hadn't been given much of an opportunity to talk to the dimension travellers because Remus, being careful was always is always sitting between them and her, a quite clever student, though not that interested in studying many of the teachers had noted her as an excellent up and coming pupil and had taken to carefully guiding her questions and giving her gentle lectures, she could be found reading quite often in the staff common room, where she was quite warmly welcomed.

Lily and James Potter the Minister for Magic and his wife; their large entourage of guards Aurors and Unspeakables who were in fact getting quite restless at all this hanging around, even if it was a bit of a holiday.

Sirius Black was back to once again terrorize the castle and not being a teacher anymore his pranking power was unlimited and Snape was officially back on the market (Dumbledore had banned him from playing any pranks on the Slytherin whilst he was teaching, that of course did not stop him from encouraging kids to do it for him but it was so much more fun to do it himself.)

All in all, the old castle found itself quite full not only of cheery students but also a few cheery adults, though there were some exceptions to the rule everyone was generally ecstatic at the arrival of the pair. However life can only be ignored for so long, and sometimes it just didn't want to leave you out to be the exception to the rule.

James was awoken at one in the morning by a very persistent screech owl, when he saw the time illuminated by the large grandfather clock in the corner he sighed.

James was at a loss, he had no idea what he was going to do. He had a wonderful fully grown son who he knew next to nothing about who he wanted to spend time with and get to know, but he also had a very high standing job which had thousands of people watching his every move. Wizards with jobs like that did not just take time off, especially in large chunks when they knew they would be taking time more time off in a few months.

Sure he was the Boss, but he did have a job to keep and if he didn't get back to work soon the workers would be rallying for him to be fired. He was now receiving hourly owls compared to the three hourly ones he had previously been ignoring. As much as he hated it he knew what he had to do.

He had to go back to work.

It did not help his resolve that all his friends were currently in the castle as well and the Marauders were getting on better then they had in years, truthfully getting on better than they had since Harry died. He knew he had to go back to work…

What he didn't know how to do was how to be Minister for Magic as well has have time to get to know his son, eat and sleep.

James sighed again, and decided to sleep on it; he would talk to Lily in the morning.

"Harry could you please go make my other self stop!" Hermione said as she came in a flopped into a chair head in her hands, "She won't come out of the library at all, I don't know what to do, you and Ron were always good at getting me out of the library, you've got to help me! She's not even coming out for meals anymore!"

"Finally she understands!" Harry said looking heavenward, "You finally realized what a pain in the ass I is to have your friend shut up in a library twenty four hours a day?"

Hermione nodded, she sure understood what Harry and Ron had to go through in the early years when she practically lived in the library, Hermione had changed a lot from the person she was though and wasn't planning on going back to that lifestyle, she enjoyed her new one far to much for that, she only hoped she would be able to save her other self from the bitter and lonely life she was currently setting herself up for.

"Well OK I'll try, but no promises, it wasn't easy getting you out of there you know."

With that he gave her a quick peck on the lips before walking out on a mission to the library to remove one Hermione Granger from the clutches of the evil library, gee this brought back memories.

"Hermione I think you have failed in you quest to find out how we got here, you may as well just forget about it, your not going to find it, hell we don't even know how Albus found it he might have made it up on the spot for all we know."

"I have not failed I have just found a lot of ways that you didn't get here, and if I keep looking I know I will find the answer, the library always has the answer to everything. Always…" she trailed off as she continued scouring the books in front of her, she would be the one who found the means to travel through dimensions and she would do it before anyone else!

Melody Black was not a happy camper, sure she was happy for her husband who by all appearances had by some great miracle regained his godson, yes that was all well and good, but she was PREGNANT here! She was pregnant here and due to have her baby within the week if not any day and he had just took off and forgot about her! Tears streamed down her face, she knew she was being emotional, she knew that this was all a part of being pregnant the violent mood swings and such, but damn it she wanted her husband and she wanted him an hour ago.

Making her decision Melody walked outside and held out her wand arm.

She was going to give her husband a piece of her mind, and drag him home in the process.

Harry and Hermione decided to go for a walk on the grounds following lunch, it would give them a chance to discuss what to do about Hermione's counterpart who had remained staunchly in the library despite their best efforts to drag her out, it just wasn't healthy to remain locked up in a room with musty old books like that.

The rest of the gang they had been spending their time with were heading up to Dumbledore's office to chat about something or other, he couldn't exactly remember what.

In addition it gave them some time to be alone, something they rarely had time for before their arrival and had had very little of since.

Pushing open the doors of the entrance hall that led outside which had been kept closed the past few days due to a bitterly cold wind the pair were immediately set upon by the most terrifying beasts known to mankind, reporters.

"Daily Prophet reporter, Mr Potter is it true you travelled here from another dimension?" followed by "Mr Potter do you have any proof you can offer us as to how you arrived here?" And "The Alternate Universe theory has been around for some years Mr. Potter could you please tell us how you came about the answer?"

Hermione also got an earful but not as much as Harry, she wasn't after all the son of their Minister for Magic even if technically he wasn't his son from this dimension, not to mention he had defeated Voldemort, it probably helped that she was standing behind and off to the side of him as well.

"Ms. Granger can you tell us anything at all about your current predicament?"

"Ms. Granger were you the one to orchestrate the dimension travel?"

But the attention on Harry was overwhelming, "We heard there was a lecture held here the other night where you beat an senior Unspeakable without magic, is there anything you can tell us about that?"  

That was all they had the opportunity to hear before Harry slammed the door back shut. The look on his face was pure murder, Hermione knew what that look meant, who ever had told the press had better be running for the hills because if they weren't they bloody well should be.

He turned around barely taking any notice of her and stalked off towards Dumbledore's office. Sighing she decided to follow if only to prevent major bloodshed.

Despite Harry's head start and faster pace she managed to arrive at the Headmasters office only slightly behind him, probably because he was so mad that he had forgotten to take the short cuts that she had taken to get there.

Harry stormed into the office in such a state he didn't seem to notice the door blow itself to smithereens right in front of his nose, in fact anything that got in his way bas blown into itibity pieces without even a conscious thought from him.

Spinning around his cloak floated around in a manner reminiscent of Severus Snape.

"Just who alerted the press?" Harry asked in his lowest most deadly voice, everyone with any sense took a step back, unfortunately Professor Dumbledore was not known for his good sense he stood in his place calmly and stared into space. Unfortunately for the others though Harry had enough sense to realise that Albus was not the culprit, just being his usual oblivious self and ignoring whatever damage Harry was about to inflict. Hermione who had more sense than the others took several steps back; she did not want to be anywhere near the guilty party when Harry figured out who it was.

Well what did you think, I know it took ages longer than usual but things just kept popping up and I really wanted to get some things covered in this chapter, considerably longer than usual too about 6,500 words, hope you enjoyed it, not entirely sure when the next chapter will be up but it will be as soon as I can possibly manage to write it.


	9. Rage here needs outlet

AN: for those who don't already know the story is undergoing a revamp you may come across some things in this chapter that have only recently been added to during chapters 1-5 if you get a chance please read them again and let me know whether you think they are better this time around.

OK thought, do you guys want to have Harry and Hermione have flashbacks to the war? Their past life, their relationship?

This is actually quite short, sorry!

J

Mage

By Cataclysmic

Chapter 17

Rage here needs outlet, Volunteers?

They all looked at each other as if they could determine the one who told just by looking at them, unfortunately everybody looked as confused as everyone else, one thing they all had developed a healthy fear of the possibility Harry thought it was them, everyone thought to themselves, none of them had alerted the press but Harry obviously thought that the culprit was among them.

There was only one thing for it; it was time to play the pass the blame game.

It wasn't that they wanted anyone to actually have to face Harry's wraith, they just wanted to keep it as far away from themselves as possible.

They all started talking at once trying to vie for Harry's attention and shift the blame off themselves.

All kinds of arguments on why it could not be them spilled from the mouths of those in the room. 

It broke the spell, Harry no longer LOOKED like a ragging bull searching for the matador, but looks can be deceiving he was still seething mad underneath his façade but that was not going to help him, it was obvious that no one in the room with the possible exception of Albus who was still staring at nothing in particular and hadn't said a word, was responsible for the presence of the reporters.

Just because his target was not in this room did NOT mean he had given up on finding them, mentally he ran down his list of suspects.

Finally it was Albus who provided the answer, not that it made much difference, Harry was still mad, he just no longer had anyone to vent it on.

"Harry you do realize that the entire school is aware that you come from another universe correct?" Albus asked.

"Well yes what's that got to do with anything?"

"Well you do realize that at least some of the students would have written home and told their parents, there is absolutely no way you could possibly find the culprit."

Faced with the possibility, no more than just the mere possibility of never finding out who caused this problem Harry still needed to vent his anger, and Dumbledore's office paid the price, after all it was Dumbledore's fault for talking to the school about their situation without his permission. In one massive wave Harry's magic flew around the room breaking anything and everything inside the only things left unbroken were the humans and Fawkes, and Fawkes was not a very happy phoenix having been asleep at the time his perch broke, though how he could have remained asleep through all that noise was a mystery.

Storming back out of the room the occupants only had a moment to inspect the complete destruction of the room before it mended itself as he walked out the door.

It was Dumbledore who broke the silence.

"Well that was certainly interesting…"

Harry was in a foul mood for days after that, reporters were still hounding the school many students used up their fifteen minutes of fame in the week following the arrival of the reporters getting their names and faces printed in the 'Daily Prophet' of all things for giving information about the mysterious man, Professor Potter the newspapers revealed from an alternate universe.

Unknown to any of the students their names were also being recorded in a little black book, Harry Potters little black book.

The names were piling up, all the silly students who thought only about themselves and nothing for Harry's privacy were going to pay if he could not find and punish the original perpetrator the least he could do was to pay back the brats who betrayed him to the press since then.

Harry had always wanted a little black book to keep track of all the people who wronged him, no matter how small just so he would not forget to extract revenge, Hell he was not going to let the title 'Professor' stop him, after all he was Harry Potter and although he was not famous here he was the son of the Minister of Magic.

Hermione was worried about Harry, he had been storming around in a rage for days and yesterday afternoon she had caught him copying names out of the paper into a small muggle notebook. But the main thing that had worried her was not the days of storming around the castle in a rage, albeit still doing his work but in a very sour mood, no what worried her was the look on his face this morning when he had gotten out of bed to get dressed, satisfaction and calm gone was the barely controlled rage and she wondered what had brought about the sudden change…

Hermione was wary, she did not know what had brought about the sudden change, but she knew when something was going on, and something was definitely going on here she didn't know what, she didn't know why but she had a funny suspicion it had something to do with that little black book he had been obsessing over…

She was right, Harry had been up to something and that something was a little thing called revenge, she had noticed it immediately, well she had not connected the children hanging upside down from their ankles in the Great Hall to Harry immediately but it soon became quite obvious when she started to identify the students, not that she could identify many just a few from the yearbooks she had looked through in the last few days familiarizing herself with the students she would soon be teaching.

The connection that had to be made was actually quite obvious.

These were the children who had talked.

These were the children who had given over what little information they had on Harry over to the media for their own fifteen minutes of fame, and in some cases making up information. The Children who had made up information were far worse off than those who hadn't not only were the hanging upside down by their ankles, which was quite a site considering that many wizards and witches did not wear much underneath their robes, the ones who had fabricated information were wearing no clothes at all and dyed neon colours, multiple neon colours it was like a very sick work off art.

Thankfully Harry had had the decency to put a censorship charm on the area's that should not be seen so the young relatively innocent children would not be mentally scarred and in need of therapy within the next half hour. Unfortunately for the victims were spared the knowledge that the entire school was not in fact seeing them naked. The no doubt would be in need of therapy. Each it seemed had received a personal letter from Harry which was at the moment stuck to their chests no doubt for later reading and above or below them as the case may be was a bright and very noticeable message.

DO NOT MESS WITH PROFESSOR POTTER.

No doubt the children would be to scared to move by the time they actually got around to teaching. Poor Kids.

It actually took quite awhile to remove the kids from the ceiling, Harry had stuck them up there pretty well. He had of course refused to help get them down and it had taken the combined minds of Albus, Minerva, Filius, Mione and Hermione to figure out all the complex charms Harry had used to stick them up there and even then they weren't sure if they had gotten rid of all the charms, curses, jinxes, hexes, spells and such, they could be in for it for quite some time to come, after all it was very likely that Harry had modified spells with timers on there as well and maybe some he had made up himself, all in all it would take awhile before all the results of this were known.

Albus had kept himself quite calm about the incident, by all rights he should have been yelling and screaming and threatening to fire Harry at the moment but the memories from his other self combined with sympathy, self preservation and quite a large amount of amusement kept him from saying a word, all he could think of was that he was glad it wasn't him.


	10. Interlude: The Fall of the Ministry

AN: I've been very slack, I know… this is not a chapter but it will probably be the preface for the next chapter, think of it as a short interlude… a little look into the past.

The Fall of the Ministry was by no means a gradual thing. It had been something built up to for generations. Corruption, declining powers and power hungry leadership ensured that. In the end even a person of the purest aims in the beginning would be tainted by Ministry politics simply to keep their jobs.

In the end it did not matter who tried to save it, and many definitely did, the country's faith in the Ministry had failed. But in the end it was not faith that was the Fall of the Ministry, though it very well could have been. Thousands were put out of work by the Fall, hundreds turned before, during and after. The light side was stripped of one of its few defences, no matter how ineffectual it had been.

In the end it came down to the mental damage to the public psyche. Men and Women felt defeated, their government had been overthrown, defeated and if talking in terms of countries their capital had been taken.

It had not taken Voldemort long after his rebirth, a mere two years, to make his move on the Ministry. It was simply ripe for the taking, for years his minions like Lucius Malfoy had had their fingers in the proverbial pie, manipulating, gathering information and blackmailing. All too many decided to cut their losses and turn to Voldemort, after all he was a strong leader, their weak leader never stood a chance. Never even saw it coming. But others did, those unfavourable to Voldemort's cause, muggleborns, muggle-lovers, those not faithful to their families cause and members of the Order of the Phoenix all saw the move coming and yet they could do nothing to stop it. Cornelius Fudge was a weak leader, too trapped in his own views of grandeur to notice the danger, or heed the warnings. In the end it killed him.

The day Voldemort made his move on the Ministry was bloody, workmate against workmate, friend against friend, family against family and no one could be certain who was on which side, who would turn around and attempt to stun or kill you next. Neither side was entirely blameless, both used the most unforgivable of curses, neither side attempted negotiation, neither side showed significant mercy. There were some acts of mercy definitely, a father sparing a son, a sister sparing a brother, a friend sparing an enemy, there was mercy yes, but there was also betrayal, the son turning on the father, allies turning into enemies, families split down the middle in confusion.

Confusion would be one word to sum up the Ministry that day. Confusion and bloodshed.

The battle lasted for hours, on all levels, and no one that had been there was ever the same.

Harry had been there, watched the bloodshed, dealt out bloodshed, and watched as other people's friends and family turned against them. Watched as many made the mistake of turning to Voldemort's side. He could not forgive them that mistake, anything else but never that; once they were on that side they were his enemy once they were his enemy they ceased to be the people they had been before. At least that was what he tried to tell himself, it wasn't true, not really and it didn't really help him feel any less guilty about their deaths.

Their deaths were on his hands, the deaths of people who were not all animals.

There were some whose deaths did not bother him in the least, those who had lost all shreds of humanity or had so few in the first place that the loss meant little to nothing. Lucius Malfoy was one, Bellatrix Lestrange another.

He had not realised just how far a human could fall until he saw her there, killing indiscriminately, enjoying every minute of it… the worst of it was that as far as he could tell she was sane. She knew what she was doing, the consequences of her actions and she relished in it.

She taunted her prey, took pleasure in their deaths and made them as drawn out and painful as possible. He had little doubt that if she had more time her victims would have suffered much more.

He had no second thoughts about shooting her. She was only the fifth person he ever shot up until that point.

Neither did he have any second thoughts about the manner of her death. A lot of wizards maintained up until the end that it was not an honourable or fair thing to do, even in war…a lot of them died.

War wasn't about honour. Not really, it was about winning in the end and in his eyes winning meant by any means possible, even if you have to cheat.

He had no doubts that if Bellatrix or any number of other Death Eaters had come across him with his back turned and no defences they would not hesitate to kill him, or try to. It was unreasonable to expect to win with only the other side willing to use lethal force, or underhanded methods. It was not favourable by any means. The Dark Wars were like that though, unfavourable. It was most likely the most devastating war ever fought on the face of the planet because both sides were determined to do everything they could to win.

They were named the Dark Wars early on in the war for many reasons, first and foremost the amount of Dark Magic used, on both sides. Wars were used in plural because that's what they were, wars. On dozens of fronts in several countries.

There were other reasons they were called the Dark Wars though. Many believed that one way or another these wars would lead them back to the dark ages…Voldemort would win and pull them all back in time to live in the ways they had back then, with himself as a dictator, or they could wipe out or lose the knowledge of their technology through the course of the war, lose the knowledge they had gained throughout the past centuries. Then there was the scariest connotation of all, by use of nuclear technology. Both sides had it, both sides were afraid to use it.

But then again there were never any guarantees with Voldemort.


	11. Classes

AN: OK I decided instead of the monster chapter I had in the works to do it in several smaller chapters, otherwise there would be too big a gap in between chapters, I am doing my HSC this year and I don't have as much time to write as I would like. This way I have about this and the next two updates pretty much ready to go and you will at least get something for the next few weeks.

So look forward to the next chapter around Thursday next week.

Please go check out Shadow Liaison my new Stargate/BTVS crossover!

Thanks

Cataclysmic.

* * *

Teaching preteens to eighteen year olds Defence Against the Dark Arts was a demanding task to be sure. Not the most demanding task he had ever undertaken but it ran a very close second.__

Harry smiled as he looked out over his classroom, everyone was quietly reading his or her books for the present moment and he was grateful, this was one of the very few peaceful moments he had managed to cultivate in weeks.

Teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts was a lot more work than Harry had ever imagined, even split between the two of them, he and 'Mione the workload was enormous. Both of their schedules had been extremely full on for the past several weeks, he was actually surprised that he managed to fit in several hours sleep a day.

He honestly didn't know how his teachers had ever managed to keep up with everything, between learning or revising the curriculum they had set, essays, homework, lesson plans, trouble making students and meals Harry could easily see why Snape was in a perpetual bad mood. The only hope for salvation Harry could see with the job was that it would probably settle down soon, and next year would not be nearly so bad, he had to believe that the job would get easier with time or he just wouldn't survive it.

He only had himself to blame for his present dilemma though. Well himself and Hermione at any rate. They both wanted to be sure to cover everything the students could possibly ever need or want.

Unfortunately everything the students could ever need or want covered an awful lot of material and the work required to fulfil such a requirement was more than enough to keep two individuals going full time, and then some. He could easily see why their predecessors had let their standards slip; he could also see why only the evil I-want-to-kill-Harry-Potter types had ever applied for the jobs. And Remus and Sirius of course but sanity had to be an issue there… he after all had to question his own sanity in accepting the position.

The teaching standard had not really been lax here in previous years; in fact the teaching standard here was far greater than he could ever remember it being in his own world. However the teaching schedule proved to be a problem with large gaps becoming apparent in the students education. Hogwarts had never set a minimum standard for its teachers and as such important topics were often skipped over due to the teacher's incompetence in the subject or by oversight. So in addition to setting their own curriculum they had been forced to search for and cover gaps and misinformation the students had been taught.

By far the easiest class to teach would be the First Years who would have very little to no previous impressions of Defence Against the Dark Arts and no misinformation or gaps in their knowledge. They were a clean slate on which to start on, a clean slate they were determined to take advantage of. Harry and Hermione had planned the First Year curriculum all the way to seventh year, so even if they left the students would still benefit from their knowledge and experience. Hopefully by the end of it all most of the students would be on par with second year Aurors. Though second year Aurors were not the best out there they were fairly decent at defending themselves and those around them.

Hermione of course had taken charge of the First Years, eager to start filling their impressionable young minds to the brim with knowledge. Somehow he himself had found himself in charge of nearly every class above fifth year, and every Slytherin class above fourth year. Certainly, he thought it was a bad idea to leave Hermione in charge of setting the schedules and most of the curriculum. When he had questioned her on the schedule she had only replied that he was better qualified to teach the older students, but he knew of course she had ulterior motives, she just wanted to get her metaphorical hands on all those impressionable young minds to mould.

He had to say that some classes were just a disaster waiting to happen, nearly total lost causes, such as his fifth year Hufflepuff class:

_"You Know Who has a name? I always thought that his name was You Know Who…"_

_"How thick can you get?" Harry muttered under his breath. But then again these kids had not suffered under the effects of Voldemort's reign, though their parents undoubtedly had, not even able to overcome their own fear of the name to let their children know that You-Know-Who's name was not really You-Know-Who._

He could just see them now, "Mummy who's this You-Know-Who everybody talks about?" here said mother would be rendered speechless before replying "You-Know-Who was a very bad Dark Wizard who was very very bad, but don't worry he's gone now and he's never coming back."

It was just so pathetic, and these were the generation of people who would most likely face the next Dark Lord, and if they were the typical examples of a fifteen-year-old witch or wizard's intelligence, He might actually welcome the change.__

Harry had extreme doubts that this peace people had been enjoying so much for the past eighteen years was going to last. It was only a matter of time until someone came along that did not like way things were run, or thought they could do a better job and drummed themselves up some support. There was never such a thing as real peace after all, only the appearance of it. If you looked closely enough, or scraped past the surface far enough you would find some malcontents. Everyone's opinion on matters was slightly different after all.

No there was no such thing as real peace just a break between wars, all the wars determined was the victor, the winner, which side was stronger and all a war determined was the living conditions to be endured during the 'peace' times. War was nearly always waged by a minority, a group who could not get what they wanted through 'legal' means.

He was really appalled by that particular class and he thanked god they were in the minority. He had actually managed to gather a rather intelligent Ravenclaw class, smart even for Ravenclaw's, and they didn't all rely on book smarts. They also had a sense of humour, which was more than he could say for the majority his classes (Slytherins, cough, cough) although it could be that they appreciated his own brand of humour more than the others.

He laughed inwardly as he thought back to his first class with his favourite class:

_"Don't worry class, I sometimes go to my own little world, but it's okay, they know me there."_

_He had decided to start with a bang here, make them think he was a little bit dim, try to throw them off a bit._

The class stared at Professor Potter in disbelief, this was the guy they saw best an Unspeakable without magic? They could not believe it was the same person, there was obviously something missing up there.

One or two recognized the act for what it really was, an act, after all Albus Dumbledore the most powerful wizard in the world was often seen as a senile old man with an obsession with candy, this merited them a wink and enough warning (as they had not taken their eyes off him to share looks with their neighbours) to cover their ears as Professor Potter yelled out at the top of his lungs "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!"

The silence following the statement echoed around the classroom.

"Never ever underestimate your opponents."

"But sir you are not an opponent you're our teacher…" a Ravenclaw he now knew by the name of Nathan Weatherby countered.

"Whoever said I was not your opponent, sure I am your Professor but you never know it could be a dastardly clever plot to get close to you and kill you."

The class laughed.

Harry remained stoic.

"Whoever said I was joking?" he asked with the most serious expression he could muster. "Happened to me plenty."

"The world, I don't care how peaceful it may seem, is full of people out to get you. You should always be aware of this and prepare accordingly."

"Now today we will be working on the Altra Via curse, can anyone tell me the origins of the Altra Via curse?"

A girl in the third row raised her hand.

"Yes Miss…?"

"Hallier sir… the Altra Via curse was discovered in 1786 during the Giant Rebellion in response to the Goblin curse Hewed Elegiac, Dark Magic which was latter slightly altered by Dark Wizards to form the Elegiac Curse. Altra Via both shields the castor from Hewed Elegiac and the Elegiac Curse."

"Well Done." Harry replied, thinking that at least some people in this school had a modicum of intelligence, and then he shivered thinking about how much he sounded like Snape when he thought like that.

"Now who can tell me the purpose of the Hewed Elegiac and Elegiac Curse?"

A mousy haired girl in the back row was the only person to raise their hand.

"You are?" Harry asked.

"Alexandria Nott sir," the girl squeaked quietly.

Harry smiled kindly at her; he knew who her family was and what they had done, what they had been in the previous war. Not quite Death Eaters themselves the majority of the Nott's were at least supporters of Voldemort, though a few joined the Dark Lord not many of the Nott's had actually gone as far as to become Death Eaters.

He knew that prejudices had ran high in the school since the last war and he knew she wasn't doing herself any favours by answering this question for him.

"The Hewed Elegiac and Elegiac curses are torture curses, designed to maximise pain on the physical, mental and psychological levels the Elegiac curses were used to drive leaders of the opposing side insane before their deaths, the Elegiac curse is used from a distance and can be recognised by its appearance an ice blue netting, the Elegiac curse works extremely quickly and death is likely to occur within twenty four hours if the correct medical attention is not given. If treated within four hours the Elegiac curse can be reversed and there is a good chance the subject will retain sanity, the longer left without treatment the more the subject will deteriorate."

"Thank you Alexandria." Harry said, "The Elegiac curses were used as demoralisers in the 1786 Goblin Wars and were extremely effective, being a new curse that no one had seen before no one had any idea how to treat those cursed or how to block the magic. The Elegiac curses were only used on leaders of the opposing side for the simple fact that it took an extreme amount of magic energy to cast the curse, it was simply not worth the temporary magic shortage the curse caused for the curse to be used on just anyone."

One of the most entertaining ongoing occurrences in Harry's opinion was Melody Black Sirius's wife, who was in his humble opinion the best thing that had ever happened to his godfather. It was funny now that he thought about it but he had never really seen Sirius as the getting married and having kids type. Yet here he was the eternal bachelor of Harry's mind married with a kid on the way.

From what he had seen in recent weeks Melody was a good match for him, and certainly managed to keep his godfather in line. He always had to fight back a laugh whenever he thought of Melody, when she had first arrived; heavily pregnant she had marched right into the Great Hall and dragged Sirius out by the year shouting at him the entire time.

Melody Black was a force to be reckoned with whilst pregnant. He wasn't sure he wanted to see what she was like when she wasn't.

He was more than a little scared though of the friendship Hermione had struck up with Melody, she was one scary lady and he wasn't sure he wanted her rubbing off on Hermione. She was scary enough as it was.

He still wasn't sure where he stood on the idea of Sirius as a parent, sure he had always thought of Sirius as a second father, the father he had never had, but he by no means thought he would be a responsible parent. A cool parent yes, a responsible parent no. Then again Melody seemed to be responsible enough for the both of them.

Thankfully Melody seemed to have some form of control over Sirius. Harry had never seen his godfather act as civilised and responsible than he did in Melody's presence. Sirius actually managed to appear somewhat responsible, well to people who didn't know the marauder in him at least.


	12. Mystery Watch

**Mage**

**By Cataclysmic**

**Chapter 12**

* * *

Argenteil lingered on the edge of the forest, not daring to move out from the cover the canopy of tree's provided. The forest was patrolled of course, but not nearly as well as the grounds, even under the cover of darkness he would immediately be noticed if he ventured from the safety of the trees. Such was the benefit of such open ground around a dwelling he supposed, but even if he escaped the notice of the castles human sentinels he would not escape the notice of the magical.

Absently he rubbed the large scar which ran from elbow to the webbing between his fingers, a reminder of the foolishness of his youth when he believed he could fool the magical sentinels of this fortress of wizards.

It was standard practice for his kind to come and observe, be aware of the goings on of this castle, and others like it. To study the wizards who had long been a bane on their kind.

The wizard schools were by far the easiest to observe not encased within large settlements of humans as their governments were.

Although those were observed as well.

It had taken many months for Argenteil to track the magic user thus far; whoever or whatever had entered their world was an adept shielder of their essence.

But finally he had tracked down the origin of the power shift.

He had seen the young man earlier, walking across the grounds from the hut of the caretaker. The power flowing from the individual, though he was shielded, the flow of power off the individual was unmistakeable.

But he had not dared approach. Not yet.

It was not common for his kind to associate with humans, even powerful humans such as this one.

This man was to be an exception, by order of the leaders of his kind he was to contact this individual and bring him to audience before their kind.

The power shift had been significant, and he had no doubt that other magical creatures would have felt it, depending on how attuned they were of course. The others would be looking for him, it was imperative he bring him before his liege lord and lady before any of the others found him.

This was not the first power shift, and certainly, he was sure it would not be the last.

There was however one significant difference with this power shift.

Never before had the arrival of one from another world completely changed the future of another...

Destiny had shifted her plans due to this human, for the first time ever prophecy was invalid, the centaurs could no longer read the stars and his kind was left on the same boat as humans, without the foreknowledge that had protected his kind for millennia.

* * *

Remus sighed as he glanced over at his research partner. It had taken a surprisingly long time for him to realise he was not the only one researching the alternate universe theory.

Hermione Granger, a brilliant young witch whose counterpart had apparently come through the portal with the alternate Harry Potter was determined to find the answer to the same question he was. Or rather to take it one step further and actually achieve breachment between realities if it was actually possible.

Though Remus was not actually interested in taking his investigation quite that far, he found that research speed had increased exponentially after he joined forces with the brilliant young witch.

They were close to a breakthrough, he knew it.

Apparently the impostors knew it as well, increasingly they were coming to the library to drag his research partner out of the library for some 'fun'.

They had tried to take him as well at first, but some underlying current of his annoyance must have made it self clear to the pair because they no longer attempted to drag him along on their forced outings.

They were concerned as well; it was obvious from both their facial expressions and their scents.

They were close and the impostors knew it.

They were trying to delay the inevitable, but he would find the truth.

* * *

It had taken some digging, or rather creative watching, but Argenteil had finally figured out who the man was claiming to be, and where the one who induced the power shift had slotted himself into society.

He was actually surprised that he had not heard of or traced the path to this individual earlier.

It was an inexcusable oversight that he had never before thought to consult a wizard newspaper.

Though understandable. It was not often that the wizards actually noticed something of importance. It was all he could do to wade his way through the unimportant nonsense whenever he got hold of one of these papers. He certainly didn't go out of his way to track them down.

His mission just got considerably more difficult.

After all, even wizards would notice the disappearance of the Minister of Magic's alternate universe son.

He knew he was being followed, he could practically feel the eyes following him through the darkness.

He did not turn to look however; he knew it was pointless he would not be able to see anything through the darkness.

He gave off no sign that he knew he was being followed, he could hear the footsteps off to the side, near the forest. It was practically impossible not to hear them in fact; they were walking on the dry leaves that had fallen from the trees on the edge of the forest.

He was on his way back to Hogwarts after going down to Hogsmeade to pick up a book for Hermione. He had stopped off at the Three Broomsticks on his way back and had been dragged into celebrating with Hagrid, Professor Kincaid of Muggle Studies and Professor Vector of Arithmancy.

What they had been celebrating though he really wasn't sure, and by the time he had arrived in the pub they were too far gone to know either.

Slowly and carefully Harry slowed his pace until whoever was watching him was only three feet to his left.

Amateur.

He would never have let someone he was watching get this close to his location.

With a quick steady grace Harry stepped forward and shot his arm out into the brush.

And came into contact with a neck.

A thin adolescent neck, in fact.

Pulling his arm, and inadvertently his captive, back toward himself he examined his prey.

'Damn' he thought, he had caught a student out after hours. What made it worse was the fact the boy was a Slytherin.

He would have to make a late night visit to Snape.

'Oh Joy' he thought sarcastically, 'Why couldn't I just ignore him.'

* * *


End file.
